On Mon, 07 Oct 2002 14:04:12 -0400 jale@xxxxxxxxxx wrote: | Pine is just an email client, correct? If so, the files are the same for | Pine or any other email client - if you have openwebmail installed, it isThat statement isnt completely correct. There's several standard unix mailbox formats, not just one.
There can be specific files *about* your email, but the file itself - would there really be any difference? Email is, in every email system I have worked on, and there are MANY (on the server side, I'm not speaking about clients) and they are just flat sequential files. TO:, FROM:, are just headers that need to be parsed.
Where would there be/could there be differences in the email file itself - email programs do no manipulation on the data, just parse it and move it from place to place. That is why you can read your mail with about any program - I can read my mail with Eudora, Outlook, openwebmail, and probably Pine without doing anything differently.
The differences are in the possibility of required headers, the order of headers, etc. The only thing that is needed to make an email go is either a TO:, CC: or BCC: - it only needs to know where it is going. All other headers are optional, body, subject, from:, etc., all optional. Attachments are just in-line binary data with a header telling information about what is to follow, it is just like an extended length message body, there is nothing sacred about an attachment other than how it is decoded.
I am really curious about *standard unix mailbox formats* - where are the differences. I need to know if there are, this is not just raising a point. We write our own mail-moving programs for delivering print-jobs to any printer from anyplace, ie: a wireless handheld in a medical exam room running off our ASP - not .asp - and printing someplace on a networked printer.
Thanks, Jale