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Re: How to convert maildir to mbox format

On Sat, 19 Jun 2004 16:39:46 -0500, David Champion wrote:

>* On 2004.06.19, in <E1BbgU2-00058P-00@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
>*      "Larry Alkoff" <labradley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> 
>> I tried your script and it worked to create an mbox like file.
>> Amazing that it's so easy to do and that all my googling didn't turn up 
>> "formail".
>
>Formail/procmail are sort of a swiss army knife for mail. They can be
>employed to do a lot of things they weren't specifically designed for.
>:)
>
>
>> One problem.
>> In the created mbox file, each
>> "From " line that starts a message contains a line like for example:
>> >From 
>> >sentto-2577139-187-985364714-labradley=mindspring.com@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx  
>> >Sat Jun 1
>> 9 08:55:03 2004
>> 
>> 
>> Is this a proper mbox format?
>> I've looked at a few mbox files and the From lines I've seen all start with 
>> "From " then the email address, then date-time.
>> In the above case it would have been:
>> >From labradley=mindspring.com@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx  Sat Jun 1 9 08:55:03 2004
>
>I think that the difference you're asking about is just the
>"sentto-2577139-187-985364714-" part, and that the ">From" and the
>newline in the date are just artifacts. (I mention this just to
>check that I'm right.) In that case, this looks OK to me.
>
>The "From " line contains the envelope address -- the address used in
>the SMTP transaction. This address can differ from the From: address in
>the header. That's permissible and useful.
>
>The complicated return address is associated with a bounce processor on
>the sending computer. The method is known as "VERP" -- variable envelope
>reply processing, IIRC. It assigns a unique tag to each outbound
>message, so that on a bounce, the list server can identify precisely
>which outbound address triggered the bounce, through arbitrary layers of
>forwarding.
>
>So, if you forwarded labradley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx to, say,
>labradley@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, and then your earthlink account expired,
>the mail would bounce at Earthlink's server. But because of the VERP
>address, the list server would know that the address on its list
>is labradley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx, even though the bounce message says
>that labradley@xxxxxxxxxxxxx is the bad address. Then it could take
>appropriate action on your list membership despite having inaccurate
>information in the bounce.
>
>You'll see this for many list memberships. Formail didn't invent it out
>of nothing, it just found that information in the Maildir and created a
>"From " line that replicates it. For direct mail from person to person,
>you probably won't see that kind of thing unless the sender's mail
>system is trying to be very clever.
>
>(I'm supposing a little bit here about how onelist.com's list software
>works, but it seems reasonable. Full headers for a message would tell
>for sure.)
>
>It's also worth note that the "From " line probably doesn't matter,
>anyway, as long as there's something address-like there. Generally these
>are ignored once they're in the mbox file; they're mostly useful just
>for tracing a message's path through SMTP. For mutt's purposes, only the
>From: header matters.
>
>Does that answer your question?
>
>

I looked at the original .msg files and compared them to the created mbox file.
It seems that _every_ message in the file was created by formail with that 
"funny" From line.
None of the original messages seem to have anything like that so I'm wondering 
if and why formail
created the data and where it came from.

I've attached one of the original messages (ga20xs0.msg) 
and cut out the same message from the mbox file (formail_msg).

Mutt is reading the mbox file ok but I'm quite curious.

Larry



Larry Alkoff N2LA - Austin TX
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Help - could someone e-mail me an azimuth.bmp map that will work with
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73's
Doug May
WA2DX


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