[comp.mail.mush] Sorting Chronologically by Subject

gsgi_ltd@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Gregory Gibson) (07/19/90)

Is it possible to sort mail chronologically by subject in both 7.0.4 and
7.1.2.  By "chronologically by subject", I mean that all the messages
will the earliest subject in the folder would be first, then all the
messages with the second oldest subject, etc.

Sorted chronologically (i.e. normally):

Greg		Jan 1		Cows
Mark		Jan 1		Horses
Bill		Jan 1		Re: Cows
Dan		Jan 1		Barn Animals
Jack		Jan 2		Re: Barn Animals
Mark		Jan 2		Re: Horses
Bill		Jan 2		Farmers
Dave		Jan 3		Re: Cows

Sorted chronologically by subject:

Greg		Jan 1		Cows
Bill		Jan 1		Re: Cows
Dave		Jan 3		Re: Cows
Mark		Jan 1		Horses
Mark		Jan 2		Re: Horses
Dan		Jan 1		Barn Animals
Jack		Jan 2		Re: Barn Animals
Bill		Jan 2		Farmers

I appreciate the time it takes to reply.

Thank you,
Greg Gibson
-- 

Gregory Gibson 
gsgi_ltd@uhura.cc.rochester.edu or  gsgi_ltd@uordbv.bitnet
UUCP: {decvax,harvard,ames,rutgers}!rochester!ur-cc!gsgi_ltd

dpk@Morgan.COM (Doug Kingston) (07/19/90)

What we really want for Chronological Topics is the following

1. Sort mail by date.
2. For each subject starting at the oldest, pull forward any other
messages with the same subject line (with or without re:).

The mail is now grouped by topic, oldest topic first, with messages
from oldest to newest within a topic.

Is this possible?

	-Doug-

schaefer@ogicse.ogc.edu (Barton E. Schaefer) (07/20/90)

In article <8468@ur-cc.UUCP> gsgi_ltd@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Gregory Gibson) writes:
} Is it possible to sort mail chronologically by subject in both 7.0.4 and
} 7.1.2.  By "chronologically by subject", I mean that all the messages
} will the earliest subject in the folder would be first, then all the
} messages with the second oldest subject, etc.

Sorry, there isn't any (easy) way to do this.  You can sort by subject and
chronologically within subject with "sort -s -d" (assuming you have 7.1,
older versions can't handle this), but you can't sort groups of messages
based on the characterstics of one message in the group.

In article <9007191558.AA02321@Morgan.COM> dpk@Morgan.COM (Doug Kingston) writes:
} What we really want for Chronological Topics is the following
} 
} 1. Sort mail by date.
} 2. For each subject starting at the oldest, pull forward any other
} messages with the same subject line (with or without re:).
} 
} Is this possible?

It is if you use temp files.  Thus:

    # Sort by date
    sort -d
    # Make sure message 1 is the current message
    from - 1
    # Save and delete all messages with this subject
    eval -h 'pick -s %s | save tempsort | delete'
    update
    # Repeat the above until all messages have been moved
    # to "tempsort".  Make a cmd of it for easy repetition.
    # When the folder is empty, read "tempsort" back in:
    merge tempsort
    sh rm tempsort

"cut" and "paste" cmds using a similar trick were posted here some
while ago.  The ability to move messages around arbitrarily without
resorting to temp files is on the TODO list.
-- 
Bart Schaefer						schaefer@cse.ogi.edu