Subject: Structure of Pine Folder Files in OSF/1?

From: Jim Clark <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Jul 1995 21:04:21 -0500

Hi

I am trying to understand the structure of Pine Folder Files so as to 
convert from VMS mail to Pine using an awk program that was posted 
earlier.  The program didn't work for me (perhaps reflecting just my own 
ignorance of Pine, Unix, and lots of other things).  In playing around 
trying to do manually what I thought the program was to do (just to 
understand it), some strange things seem to happen.

To illustrate, I used Pico to create the following file and put it in the 
mail directory.

>From [email-masked]
>Subject: test
>Status: RO
>This is  the content of the file.

When I enter Pine and select the test folder, however, what I see is this 
entire thing as the body of the message.  OSF, Pico, or Pine seems to 
have added its own header information, as shown by the following file 
extracted from Pine.

>From [email-masked] Jul 19 00:49:33 1995
>Date: Wed, 19 Jul 1995 00:42:44 -0500
>From: [email-masked]
>Subject: /usr/home/faculty/clark/mail/test
>
>From: [email-masked]
>Subject: test
>Status: RO
>This is  the content of the file.
>

Can anyone explain what is happening here?  Does Pine have information 
about the folders that does not appear as regular text in the folder files?

Take care
Jim

****************************************************************************
James M. Clark                       (204) 786-9313
Department of Psychology             (204) 786-1824 Fax
University of Winnipeg               [email-masked]
Winnipeg, Manitoba  R3B 2E9          4L02A
CANADA
****************************************************************************

---

From: Mark Crispin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jul 1995 01:33:15 -0700

The answer to your question is that you did not write a mail folder file.
Since it was not recognized as a mail folder file, it was treated as raw
data.  The additional header information was pseudo-header, generated from
the attributes of the file.

The Unix mbox format of mail folders requires the date in ctime() format
to appear in the "From " line.  You must have an RFC-822 format Date:,
From:, and To: line.  Note that the format of the Date: in the RFC-822
header is in a different format (not ctime()) from the "From " header
line.  Furthermore, a blank line (completely empty, not even a space) must
separate the RFC-822 header from the body.  So, in your example:
	From [email-masked]
	Subject: test
	Status: RO
	This is  the content of the file.
you should do
	From [email-masked] Wed Jul 19 00:49:33 1995
	Date: Wed, 19 Jul 1995 00:49:33 -0500
	From: [email-masked]
	Subject: test
	To: [email-masked]
	Status: RO

At a minimum, you should read RFC-822.  This will not discuss the details
of the internal mbox "From " header (this is a UNIXism and not in RFC-822)
but basically a "From " header is the word "From", a space, a source email
address, and the date in ctime() format.  Do not confuse "From " with the
From: header in RFC-822!

> about the folders that does not appear as regular text in the folder files?

-- Mark --

DoD #0105, R90/6 pilot, FAX: (206) 685-4045  ICBM: N 47 39'35" W 122 18'39"
Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.