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Path: utzoo!mnetor!yetti!geac!daveb
From: daveb@geac.UUCP (Brown)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc
Subject: Re: X.400 ean mail system
Message-ID: <1252@geac.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 26-Aug-87 14:47:40 EDT
Article-I.D.: geac.1252
Posted: Wed Aug 26 14:47:40 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 27-Aug-87 06:55:02 EDT
References: <186@bernina.UUCP> <719@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM>
Reply-To: daveb@geac.UUCP (Dave Collier-Brown)
Organization: The little blue rock next to that twinkly star.
Lines: 31

Mitchell Wyle comments:
| ....  Because ean uses a
| bizarre method of storing its data (db5), one must periodically "clean"
| the data files ean creates.  Otherwise, they would continue to grow
| without bound, until the disk is full.  One day, the  "eanrebuild"
| command destroyed all of my ean data...

Dave Taylor replies:
| The first problem that is raised is that of the data storage method.  Not
| only does EAN use a unique format for the storage of data ...
| An obvious side effect of this is that the data storage format
| for the messages cannot suddenly be in a different, '822 style, format.
| So instead, you're left with the necessity of having to use various
| utilities to help maintain your data space.

  I think that dave has a misconception here: X.400 defines a format
for the contents of a file which constitutes {message*}.  This format
is very non-ascii and not fully convertable to RFC 822 ascii.  It does
not, as I read the specification (which is not fully convertable to a
human language), require the storage of the messages in a file or file
sequence that is not manipulatable with more-or-less normal system
tools.  The use of db5, if true, is a decisision made by the ean
developers, and appears to have caused a problem...

 --dave (i think i like the format, but i can't read the spec) cb

-- 
 David Collier-Brown.                 {mnetor|yetti|utgpu}!geac!daveb
 Geac Computers International Inc.,   |  Computer Science loses its
 350 Steelcase Road,Markham, Ontario, |  memory (if not its mind)
 CANADA, L3R 1B3 (416) 475-0525 x3279 |  every 6 months.