Bug in 2.0b2

From: Craig A Summerhill <craig_at_cni.org_at_hypermail-project.org>
Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 20:50:57 -0400 (EDT)
Message-Id: <9808080050.AA06207_at_a.cni.org>


Kevin,

For your consideration...

I found a bug on the 2.0b2 code. While scanning a mailbox, the program is failing to pick up the beginning of a new message unless the sendmail parsing line is preceeded by a null line. In other words, your new version of Hypermail is checking for the string:

    <any text>end-of-line
    end-of-line
    From_

to signal a new message is beginning in the mailbox. I'm not sure what the old version was doing to parse messages, but it was definately different than this. Without that center null line, Hypermail 2.0b2 doesn't pick up all the messages when processing an mbox file.

This has caused me a considerable headache today. In the process of converting a number of old archives using the new program I discovered this problem because several of the archives were dozens of messages shy of the number that should have been there... Several mail user agents apparently do not include a null line following the message. I had to manually edit a bunch of mailboxes and insert extra white space in order to get Hypermail to pick up all the messages...

I do not know what the standard practice is on this parsing unix mbox format, but I do know that both ELM and Pine correctly parse the mailboxes in question. And, as I said, Hypermail 1.02 used to.

I'd suggest you put a different check in place in the code to check for the start of a new message. The third (day of week), fourth (month of year), etc. positions in the line are consistent. You might want to put in a check to make sure there is a date in the line instead.

   From <email address> Mon Jan 1 12:44:29 1996

-- 

   Craig A. Summerhill, Systems Coordinator and Program Officer
   Coalition for Networked Information
   21 Dupont Circle, N.W., Washington, D.C.   20036
   Internet: craig_at_cni.org   AT&Tnet (202) 296-5098
Received on Sat 08 Aug 1998 02:57:05 AM GMT

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