From: Tom von Alten (tom_vonalten@boi.hp.com)
Date: Mon Jul 24 2000 - 11:03:19 CDT
Daniel Stenberg wrote:
> Why not just convert the mailbox to HTML and remove the original
> mailbox file? It seems like a waste of resources to do on-the-fly
> converting of static contents.
The problem I have is that the mbox -> hypermail process is not
reversible, and hypermail doesn't provide archive maintenance
functions.
The simplest installation creates a single archive which grows over
time, with degrading performance (chiefly in large index files).
There have been a variety of ad hoc solutions to creating monthly
archives, but they all depend on having source messages to send
through hypermail.
Having failed to save mbox source, or to establish a segmenter up
front, I have no way to delete unwanted messages, segment a large
archive into smaller ones on month, year, or other boundaries, etc.
The missing enhancement, imho, is a tool or tools to perform
general archive maintenance. Having a hypermail -> mbox process
seems like a short path to that end, although it leaves a
potentially brute force task of manipulating mbox files.
Shane's idea (I think) is to keep the unadulterated source, and
generate HTML as needed. Hypermail's current status is to
generate HTML and discard the source.
Maybe I'm overstating the difficulty? Say I have an archive with
0000.html...1000.html, some messages of which have pointers to
attached documents which have been decoded, filed and referenced by
hypermail. How do I:
Delete messages (and any attachments that came with) older
than 12 months?
Move messages older than 12 months to another archive?
Delete message 0164.html and its attachments?
and so on.
_____________ Hewlett-Packard Personal Storage Business
Tom von Alten mailto:Tom_vonAlten@boi.hp.com
This posting is for informational purposes only.
It is not a statement of the Hewlett-Packard Co.