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From: gary@proa.sv.dg.com (Gary Bridgewater)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.elm
Subject: Re: Compressed folders
Message-ID: <1991Mar27.013510.15421@proa.sv.dg.com>
Date: 27 Mar 91 01:35:10 GMT
References: <1202@intelisc.isc.intel.com> <1991Mar23.224618.1206@mtdiablo.Concord.CA.US> <1210@intelisc.isc.intel.com>
Organization: Data General SDD, Sunnyvale, CA
Lines: 28

In article <1210@intelisc.isc.intel.com> lou@isc.intel.com (Lou Poehlitz) writes:
>rob@mtdiablo.Concord.CA.US (Rob Bernardo) writes:
> [stuff about compressed and/or crypted folders]

What if the header and body had separate files?  The standard elm folder would
then be the header file with an index into whatever file contained the bodies.
It could have a format like:

    { body file path *OR* command to produce the body file as a stream from stdout}
    {<empty> *OR* command to put the body file back given the data on stdin}
    HEADER1
     byte offset of BODY1 {in ASCII} and size in bytes
    HEADER2
     byte offset of BODY2 and size in bytes
    ...

To keep somewhat of a backward compatibility the first line could also be
<empty> meaning that the body part was "inline" - or if we say that these
special first two line began with some special character then the current
folder format would be recognized by having a first line which did not begin
that way.


If nothing else, separate files would make Cing into a folder go a lot
quicker for BIG folders.
-- 
Gary Bridgewater, Data General Corporation, Sunnyvale California
gary@sv.dg.com or {amdahl,aeras,amdcad}!dgcad!gary
"I am a pizza.  I am a pizza.  ..."