Subject: Edit in spool?

From: "It's a thingie! A fiendish thingie!" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 1997 23:38:07 -0600 (CST)

I'm using Unix Pine to help moderate a newsgroup.  Occasionally, I
come across a message where I need to change the header before
bouncing it to the approval address.  Is there a way for me to edit
the message in my mail spool while in Pine?  I couldn't find it in the
help screen, the manpage, or the online help.

Please Cc me in your replies.  Thanks for your help.
--
Chris Meadows aka  | ICQ UIN: 5477383
Robotech_Master    | http://www.eyrie.org/~robotech/index.html
[email-masked] | -----------------------------------------
[email-masked] | Co-moderator, rec.games.mecha

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From: "Adam H. Kerman" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 1997 23:58:26 -0600 (CST)

>From: Chris Meadows <[email-masked]>
>Date: Mon, 22 Dec 1997 23:38:07 -0600 (CST)

>the message in my mail spool while in Pine?

No. You could save the message to postponed-msgs. Then, in the composer, you'd
be able to alter any header you had configured in default-composer-headers or
customized-headers. Put in the appropriate To header and send the message on
its merry way. If you must bounce the message instead, postpone the message, go
to the index screen of the postponed-msgs folder, and bounce from there.

Are you sure that there's no way to forward, rather than to bounce, messages to
the news posting address? Then, the headers of the author's message are in the
body of the message you are forwarding, which you can alter at will. The
moderation server will extract the original message from the forwarded message.
That's the usual method.

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From: Noone Special <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Dec 1997 08:21:19 -0500 (EST)

> >the message in my mail spool while in Pine?
Not while in pine.. you can, however, drop to a unix prompt and edit your
mail spool directly (not recommended).  Pico will work, but it will wrap
long lines (I forget what the cutoff length is) which may not be what you
want.  vi will work also, and won't wrap lines.. that is... if you know
how to use it.  I would suggest emacs if you have it on your system..
If you choose to go that route, I strongly suggest you back up your
mail spool first, as you may very well render your mail inoperable, in
which case you can just copy your backup over the fudged spool.

The path to the mail spool on this system is /usr/spool/mail/username
where "username" is the name of the user in question (in your case, ahk ;)

Your mail spool should follow a similar format, although it is probably in
a different place.

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From: "Adam H. Kerman" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Dec 1997 11:28:57 -0600 (CST)

>From: Noone Special <[email-masked]>
>Date: Tue, 23 Dec 1997 08:21:19 -0500 (EST)

>where "username" is the name of the user in question (in your case, ahk ;)

Not me. I didn't ask; your reply was to my answer. Check the level of quoting.

btw, pico wraps at 74. If you use the -w switch, line length is limited to 254. 
At 255 characters or longer, it throws in a New Line after the 255th character. 
(You get a blank line following a line exactly 255 characters long.)