Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!uunet!hsi!mlfarm!ron
From: ron@mlfarm.com (Ronald Florence)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.icon
Subject: Message conventions
Message-ID: <675@mlfarm.com>
Date: 2 Jan 91 11:57:01 GMT
Sender: ron@mlfarm.com
Distribution: comp
Organization: Maple Lawn Farm, Stonington, CT
Lines: 94

Paul Abrahams writes:
 
 > I've noticed that in many of the postings to icon-group, the messages have
 > excerpts from previous messages preceded by "> ".  Could anyone let me know
 > what software you're using to get this effect, and how you're using it? 
 > Thanks. 

The convention is used by many mailers and news readers, including the
Gnu Emacs mail readers, Elm, rn, and others.  Here is a short icon
program which will accomplish the same thing.  You can either pipe a
news-article or mail-item to `reply' directly from your mail or news
reader, or save the news-article or mail-item in a file and run
`reply' with the file as input.  You will have to customize edstr and
host to suit your editor and system, and may have to customize the
addressing conventions at the end of the code.  This should work for
Unix or ms-dos (the ms-dos is untested).  It may be useful on VMS or
other operating systems with some modifications.

---------------------------[reply.icn]---------------------------
# reply.icn
# ron@mlfarm.com, 2 Jan 91
# usage: reply < news-article or mail-item
#
# Configure edstr and host as needed for your editor and mail feed.

procedure main()

  find("UNIX",&features) & {
    console := "/dev/tty"
    tmpfile := "/tmp/"
  }
  find("MS-DOS",&features) & {
    console := "CON"
    tmpfile := ""
  }
  &clock ? while tab(upto(&digits)) do tmpfile ||:= tab(many(&digits))
  tmpfile ||:= ".tmp"

  edstr := "vi " || tmpfile || " < " || console
  host := "mlfarm.com"

  eoh := 0
  reply := open(tmpfile, "w") | stop("reply: cannot open temp file")
  while s := read() do {
    eoh = 1 & {
      write(reply, " > ", s)
      next
    }
    (match("From: ", s) | match("Reply-To: ", s)) & {
      start := s[find(" ",s)+1:0]
      if find("<", s) then {
	fullname := trim(start ? tab(upto("<")))
	address := s[find("<",s)+1:find(">",s)] 
      }
      else {
	address := trim(start ? tab(upto("(")) | tab(0))
	fullname := s[find("(",s)+1:find(")",s)]
      }
      quoter := (\fullname | address)
    }
    match("Date: ", s) & date := s[7:0]
    match("Message-Id: ", s) & id := s[find("<",s):find(">",s)+1]
    match("Subject: ", s) & subject := s
    match("Newsgroup: ", s) & newsgroup := (s ? tab(upto(",")) | tab(0))
    (\address & not any(&ascii, s)) & {
      eoh := 1
      write(reply, "In-reply-to: ", quoter, "'s message of ", date);
      \subject & write(reply, subject)
      \newsgroup & write(reply, newsgroup)
      write(reply, "\nIn ", id, ", ", quoter, " writes:\n")
    }
  }
  system(edstr)
  stdin := open(console, "r")
  writes("Send y/n? ")
  upto('nN',read(stdin)) & {
    remove(tmpfile)
    stop("Reply aborted.")
  }
  find("@",address) & address ? {
    name := tab(upto("@"))
    move(1)
    address := (tab(upto(" ")) | tab(0)) || "!" || name
  }
  address ||:= "@" || host
  mailstr := "mail " || address || " < " || tmpfile
  system(mailstr)
  write("Reply sent to " || address)
  remove(tmpfile)
end
-------------------------------[end]------------------------------
--

Ronald Florence			ron@mlfarm.com