Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!ima!dirtydog!ima.isc.com!eli
From: eli@ima.isc.com (Elias Israel)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.mh
Subject: Re: multiple messages in one
Message-ID: <1990Nov29.010709.13504@dirtydog.ima.isc.com>
Date: 29 Nov 90 01:07:09 GMT
References: <23942@fs2.NISC.SRI.COM>
Sender: news@dirtydog.ima.isc.com (NEWS ADMIN)
Reply-To: eli@ima.isc.com
Organization: Interactive Systems, Cambridge, MA 02138
Lines: 43

In article <23942@fs2.NISC.SRI.COM>, cwilson@NISC.SRI.COM (Chan Wilson
[Animal]) writes:
|> 
|> I've seen this question been asked (and answered) earlier, but at
|> the time it didn't apply, so i didn't pay any attention. Now that
|> it's happening to me, I can't find the answer.  :(
|> 
|> 
|> Anyhow, here's the problem.  Mail messages are coming in, with
|> sometimes
|> several in one message.  I've just upgraded to MH6.7, and am using
|> slocal to direct mail.  MH is running on a sun4, sunos4.1. 

I suspect that I know the problem.

If you are appending your mail to a file using the '>' action in your
.maildelivery script and subsequenctly inc'ing that file, you will see
that behaviour with MH6.7. The reason for this is that inc(1) doesn't
deal correctly with message separators other than (a) Unix style and (b)
MMDF style. When you append the message to the end of the file, slocal
strips the "From user date" line from the top of the message. This is
the UNIX mail message separator line. Without it, inc can't really find
the top of each separate mail message.

What it does when it gets to that file, therefore, is separate messages
wherever it sees the string "\n\nFrom:". That means that if a mail
message ends without at least one blank line, inc(1) runs the message
together with the one after it.

To fix this, use rcvpack(1) instead of just appending the message to the
end of the file. This works because rcvpack(1) will put an MMDF-style
separator between each of the mail messages as they are added to this
file. This also fixes a number of other bugs related to inc'ing messages
from a standard ascii file (on large mail messages, data can get
trashed. Don't ask me why, I haven't figured that one out).

Hope this helps,

Elias Israel		   | "Justice, n. A commodity which in more or
Interactive Systems Corp.  | less adulterated condition the State sells
Boston, MA		   | to the citizen as a reward for his allegiance,
eli@ima.isc.com  	   | taxes, and personal service."
eli@village.boston.ma.us   |     -- Ambrose Bierce, _The Devil's Dictionary_