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Re: Netscape mail on windows & linux



On Mon, 11 May 1998, Ira Abramov wrote:

> On Mon, 11 May 1998, Dr Andy Tsouladze wrote:
> 
> > > last time I checked, Unix versions of Messanger used standard mbox format,
> ...
> > > indexed format in windows is probably faster. the main mailbox could have
> > > still been kept as mbox but they didn't do it...
> > 
> > There are index files on Unix too. The name format for each <folder> is
> > .<folder>.summary, e.g., "Sent" and ".Sent.summary".
> > 
> > I guess Linux and NT can maintain their own index files in the same
> > directory without any conflict. However, when a folder gets updated in
> > one OS, index files in the other OS will still have old information, so
> 
> 
> nonono... the Unix version uses standard mbox, plus indexes (sorry I
> wasn't clear about that) so it is readable by other common unix software,
> but the NT/95 version is no mbox, but some other DIFFERENT format as far
> as I saw. you may step over your mail!
> now unless they changed this in ver 4 (I checked in 3 last) you will run
> over the files and currupt the mail in them. make backups before testing!

I made an experiment. I ftp'ed three folders from NT4, Netscape 4.04 to
Unix (HP-UX but this should not matter). Pine was able to open each of
the three folders in read-only mode, and reported that every folder had
only one message, which was not true. It also added strange extra
headers:

From: <my E-mail address>
Subject: <full Unix path to the folder in question>

The body contained all messages as a single one. Isn't pine smart? ;-)

Then I tried to open these folders with Netscape (HP-UX 10.20, Netscape
4.05). They were opened cleanly, no problem whatever.

Now I ftp'ed a Netscape folder from Unix to NT. It was not one of the
folders that originated on NT. NT Netscape opened it without complains.

I must add that Netscape folders on Unix and NT do look differently. On
NT, Netscape adds extra information that pushes pine off track. However,
it seems that NT and Unix Netscape versions understand each other well
enough.

Andy

Dr Andy Tsouladze
Unix System Administrator
Motorola Communications Israel
mailto:andyt@mcil.comm.mot.com
mailto:andy@spl.co.il (old)
mailto:andy@environment.negev.k12.il
http://www.spl.co.il/~andy