Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!aplcen!haven!adm!news From: rbottin@atl.calstate.edu (Richard John Botting) Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions Subject: Re: Unix mail files Message-ID: <23510@adm.BRL.MIL> Date: 3 Jun 90 05:23:19 GMT Sender: news@adm.BRL.MIL Lines: 46 In article <1163:May2719:09:5690@stealth.acf.nyu.edu> brnstnd@stealth.acf.nyu.ed u (Dan Bernstein) writes: > >Yep, exactly right. You'll also note that if a line in the text of a >message starts with From and a space, the mailer adds a > to the line; >that way mailreaders won't think that it starts a new message. > >To be precise, the separator is "\n\nFrom ". Christopher R Volpe adds >The SunOS mail program that I use doesn't seem to use that as >a separator. [...] >Could there be some control characters inserted somewhere? I would place small bet on 4 CTRL/A's because this is what about 50% of our mail system does at silicon.???.csusb.edu. The other half doesn't put in these characters (Please don't ask me why - I assume insanity on the part of the programmers) (whio would doubtless prefer to reamin anonymous) The fun starts when a third process parses mail...this appears to use the FIRST line to determine what the seperator between the messages is. In consequence we often find 6 or 7 or messages all masquerading as a single one... I wrote a script to clean my mail out, then some others tried it as well. As of tonight it went into service from root - as a crontab...It reads: : clean dumb sentinels from mail files cd /usr/spool/mail for mbox in * do echo $mbox ed - $mbox <<++++ 2>/dev/null g//s/// w q ++++ done By the way - g//s/// is not what it appears to be you'll have to insert 4 CTRL/A's ^here :-) Dr. Richard J Botting (The Aging Hacker) Computer Science Dept CalStateUniversity, San Bernardino. rbottin@atl.calstate.edu paaaaar@calstate.bitnet