Subject: pine problem

From: "Randomwarp, Inc." <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Jul 1996 22:31:26 -0400 (EDT)

Pine's sort indexes are not good at all. The Date sort is particularly
horrible as there are several entries not sorted correctly.

  william

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From: Ed Greshko <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 13 Jul 1996 11:58:45 +0800 (GMT)

> horrible as there are several entries not sorted correctly.

	Ahh....would you care to cite examples?   

	Regards,

		Ed

Edward M. Greshko                       Technical Manager, Electronic Commerce
                                        Control Data Asia/Pacific Region
Voice: +886-2-715-2222 x287             6/F, 131 Nanking East Road, Section 3
FAX  : +886-2-712-9197                  Taipei, Taiwan R.O.C

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From: "Randomwarp, Inc." <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 13 Jul 1996 11:07:59 -0400 (EDT)

Sure. I set all the sorts to Date by putting the X in the config file.
But then when I go into any folder they are not sorted. Like:

Jul 	12
Jun 	6
Jun	12
Jun	25
Jul	7
Jul	11
Jul	11
Jul	13
Jul	12
Jul	13
Jul	13

  Even if I do a manual sort using $ from the options bar below, it still
won't sort date correctly.

  william

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From: Ed Greshko <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 13 Jul 1996 23:23:02 +0800 (GMT)

> won't sort date correctly.

	Sorry, I should have been a bit more explicit.  It would be
helpful if we know the details of the Date: lines.

	I've see other UAs generate Date lines like:

Date: Wed, 3 Jul 1996 11:40:46 +-5-30

	And, yes Pine didn't put it in the "correct" place....but I'm
not so sure I'd blame pine.

	So, what may be needed is for you to collect the Date: lines
in the order they appear in your spool file and then indicate the
way they were displayed for a particular sort key.

	Regards,

		Ed

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From: Paul O Bartlett <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 13 Jul 1996 08:40:24 -0400

> 	Ahh....would you care to cite examples?   

    I do not have a specific example readily to hand, but from time to
time I have received emails in which the date header has been mashed,
sometimes so much so that I could hardly figure out what it was.  The
date header does not seem to be critical to message transmission, so
the message shows up OK.

    However, when Pine is trying to sort by date (if told to do so), it
has a garbled field to deal with which it cannot sort correctly simply
because the date field is not correct itself, and Pine is not psychic
to figure out what the sender intended.  In my experience, messages
with garbled date fields tended to wind up at the top of the list. 
Also, there is the problem that some mailers may send out a date in the
format '14 Jul 1996' and others in the format '14 Jul 96', the same
date in two different formats which Pine has to deal with
mechanistically.

Paul                             <[email-masked]>
----------------------------------------------------------
Paul O. Bartlett, P.O. Box 857, Vienna, VA 22183-0857, USA
Finger, keyserver, or WWW for PGP 2.6.2 public key 
Home Page:  URL: http://www.access.digex.net/~pobart

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From: Mark Crispin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 14 Jul 1996 13:22:16 -0700

> with garbled date fields tended to wind up at the top of the list. 

This is a very good description of the problem.  For several decades,
"Garbage In - Garbage Out" has been a mantra among programmers.  What may
seem very obvious to humans is not necessarily obvious to programs.

Pine 3.95 has some significant improvements in this area.

> date in two different formats which Pine has to deal with

Pine should handle this correctly.

-- Mark --	Read http://www.imap.org for the "best kept secret in email"

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.