jis@mtgzx.att.com (J Mukerji) (08/22/90)
In the process of putting together a shell script for converting PCS
mailboxes into AMS folders I came across what appears to be an annoying
aspect of messages. I followed Nathaniel's instructions, and everything
worked fine until the last step, which involves "reconstructing" the
newly created folder. While reconstructing the folder one is prompted as
follows:
CUI> How do you want to sort the reconstructed folder
1 - By time stamp on the raw files
2 - By parsing the 'Date' header (slower; sets time stamps)
Choose one [1 - By time stamp on the raw files]:
I selected 2 hoping that I would get the timestamps set right on the
files so that the right sending times would be reflected in the captions
when the folder is viewed in messages. Unfortunately, that is not to be.
Although the messages get sorted correctly, the timestamps do get set,
but in the captions messages displays the time at which the message was
moved from PCS form to the AMS folder. Now this time is seems to be less
important for the user than the time at which the message was originally
sent. So I am left wondering how I can get messages to display the
timestamp as set by cui in the captions instead of this other time. Is
there a preference that I can set or something like that? Or is it going
to need changes in the source code? Where does messages get the time
that it displays in the captions from?
Thanks.
Jishnu Mukerji,
jis@mtgzx.att.com,
+1 201 957 5986,
AT&T Bell Laboratories,
MT 3K-423, 200 Laurel Ave.,
Middletown NJ 07748
... [An Andrew ToolKit view (an animated drawing) was included here, but
could not be displayed.]Craig_Everhart@TRANSARC.COM (08/23/90)
Do the messages that you are moving have Date: headers that are parseable? That is, if you feed the contents of the Date: headers to CUI's ``whenis'' command, do you get meaningful results? I say this because your symptoms could be explained if all the Date: header parses failed, and CUI had to use the date on the file itself. Craig
jis@mtgzx.att.com (J Mukerji) (08/23/90)
Excerpts from mail: 22-Aug-90 Re: eatmail and AMS (messag.. Craig_Everhart@transarc. (341) > Do the messages that you are moving have Date: headers that are > parseable? That is, if you feed the contents of the Date: headers to > CUI's ``whenis'' command, do you get meaningful results? > I say this because your symptoms could be explained if all the Date: > header parses failed, and CUI had to use the date on the file itself. > Craig It appears to me that CUI was able to parse the dates since it did set the dates on the files correctly and it sorted the messages in the correct order too. It is only when messages is used to view the folder in which those messages are placed that the other date shows up in the captions. Indeed running the date in those messages through whenis in cui yields the following: CUI> whenis 12 Aug 1988 13:11 EDT 8/12/88 13:11:00 Jishnu.
bobg+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU (Robert Steven Glickstein) (08/28/90)
Excerpts from internet.info-andrew: 21-Aug-90 eatmail and AMS (messages) .. J Mukerji@mtgzx.att.com (1543+1) > While reconstructing the folder one is prompted as follows: > CUI> How do you want to sort the reconstructed folder > 1 - By time stamp on the raw files > 2 - By parsing the 'Date' header (slower; sets time stamps) > Choose one [1 - By time stamp on the raw files]: > I selected 2 hoping that I would get the timestamps set right on the > files so that the right sending times would be reflected in the captions > when the folder is viewed in messages. Unfortunately, that is not to be. > Although the messages get sorted correctly, the timestamps do get set, > but in the captions messages displays the time at which the message was moved from PCS form to the AMS folder. This is accounted for by overambitiousness of the reconstruct command. During a reconstruction, CUI attempts to determine whether the old captions are salvageable. If so, it does not bother creating captions anew, it simply uses the old ones. The idea behind salvaging old captions is that, with FLAMES, it is possible to create customized captions, and if you have customized captions around, you'd prefer to keep them. (A few other items, such as message attributes, also get salvaged if possible.) Right now, the only good way to ensure that new captions always get created is to remove the .MS_MsgDir file from the directory being reconstructed. If I felt that this problem was serious enough, I could be persuaded to modify the user interface of CUI to ask whether or not it should try to salvage old captions. Salvaging old captions but replacing the date in them (which would be another approach) is difficult because you can't guarantee, in the presence of customizable captions, where the newly-calculated date should go (if it should even go anywhere). Other suggestions? ______________ _____________________________ Bob Glickstein | Internet: bobg@andrew.cmu.edu Information Technology Center | Bitnet: bobg%andrew@cmuccvma.bitnet Carnegie Mellon University | UUCP: ...!harvard!andrew.cmu.edu!bobg Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890 | (412) 268-6743 | Sinners can repent, but stupid is forever