Mailing List Archive

converting Netscrape mailbox to Unix mbox format
Hi, I've inherited somebody's inbox as created by Her Royal Cruftiness
Netscape. Does anybody have a Python script to salvage it back to
hallowed standards of Unix?

TIA,

Eugene
converting Netscrape mailbox to Unix mbox format [ In reply to ]
Eugene Leitl <eugene.leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de> writes:

> Hi, I've inherited somebody's inbox as created by Her Royal Cruftiness
> Netscape. Does anybody have a Python script to salvage it back to
> hallowed standards of Unix?
>
> TIA,
>
> Eugene

Last I looked Netscape mailbox format *was* unix mbox format (on unix
anyway; can't speak for Netscape on windows) - have you tried pointing
pine at them?

Otherwise you could try the mailbox standard library module...

HTH
Michael
converting Netscrape mailbox to Unix mbox format [ In reply to ]
Michael Hudson writes:

> Last I looked Netscape mailbox format *was* unix mbox format (on unix
> anyway; can't speak for Netscape on windows) - have you tried pointing
> pine at them?

Yes. Both pine and VM. Both see a giant 5 MByte message.

> Otherwise you could try the mailbox standard library module...
converting Netscrape mailbox to Unix mbox format [ In reply to ]
Hi All--

Eugene Leitl wrote:
>
> Michael Hudson writes:
>
> > Last I looked Netscape mailbox format *was* unix mbox format (on unix
> > anyway; can't speak for Netscape on windows) - have you tried pointing
> > pine at them?
>
> Yes. Both pine and VM. Both see a giant 5 MByte message.
>
> > Otherwise you could try the mailbox standard library module...

I remember MHonArc doing OK on Netscape mailboxes, but there were a lot
of missteps. You might look into their code to see how they parse the
mbox into individual messages. ...

Take care,
Ivan
----------------------------------------------
Ivan Van Laningham
Callware Technologies, Inc.
ivanlan@callware.com
ivanlan@home.com
http://www.pauahtun.org
See also:
http://www.foretec.com/python/workshops/1998-11/proceedings.html
Army Signal Corps: Cu Chi, Class of '70
----------------------------------------------
converting Netscrape mailbox to Unix mbox format [ In reply to ]
Ivan Van Laningham wrote:

> Hi All--
>
> Eugene Leitl wrote:
> >
> > Michael Hudson writes:
> >
> > > Last I looked Netscape mailbox format *was* unix mbox format (on unix
> > > anyway; can't speak for Netscape on windows) - have you tried pointing
> > > pine at them?
> >
> > Yes. Both pine and VM. Both see a giant 5 MByte message.

Try using dos2unix (if you have it) on your Netscape mailbox. That does the
trick for me.


-Charles
converting Netscrape mailbox to Unix mbox format [ In reply to ]
Ivan Van Laningham <ivanlan@callware.com> writes:

> Hi All--
>
> Eugene Leitl wrote:
> >
> > Michael Hudson writes:
> >
> > > Last I looked Netscape mailbox format *was* unix mbox format (on unix
> > > anyway; can't speak for Netscape on windows) - have you tried pointing
> > > pine at them?
> >
> > Yes. Both pine and VM. Both see a giant 5 MByte message.
> >
> > > Otherwise you could try the mailbox standard library module...
>
> I remember MHonArc doing OK on Netscape mailboxes, but there were a lot
> of missteps. You might look into their code to see how they parse the
> mbox into individual messages. ...
>
> Take care,
> Ivan
> ----------------------------------------------
> Ivan Van Laningham
> Callware Technologies, Inc.
> ivanlan@callware.com
> ivanlan@home.com
> http://www.pauahtun.org
> See also:
> http://www.foretec.com/python/workshops/1998-11/proceedings.html
> Army Signal Corps: Cu Chi, Class of '70
> ----------------------------------------------

I once "converted" Netscape mailbox files to VM files. The problem that
I had is different from the problem that is described here, so I think
something else is going on here. Anyway, my problem was that some of the
messages stored in Netscape didn't have an empty line, which VM needed
as a separator between messages, before they began. The effect was that
if I just used Netscape mailbox files in VM, VM would show fewer number
of messages because a few of the adjacent messages were recognized as a
single message. I fixed this by writing a simple shell script, which I
attach below. I suppose it could be useful to somebody else migrating
from Netscape to VM. The only thing that will be necessary to run the
script is to replace `name-temp-file` to some temporary file name. In my
case, name-temp-file is another shell script to generate a new temporary
file name.

--- Cut here for script file 'correct-netscape-mail-file' ---
#!/bin/tcsh -f

onintr cleanup

if ( $# != 1 ) then
echo usage: $0:t \<mail-file-name\>
exit 1
endif

set inputfile = "$1"
set tempfile = `name-temp-file`
awk 'BEGIN {prev_empty = 1; bad_lines = 0;} {if ($0 ~ /^From[^:]/) {if (! prev_empty) {bad_lines++; print "";}} print $0; if ($0 == "") prev_empty = 1; else prev_empty = 0;} END {if (! prev_empty) {bad_lines++; print "";} exit (bad_lines);}' "$inputfile" > $tempfile
set nerror = $status
if ( $nerror == 0 ) then
echo Nothing to correct for mail file \`$inputfile\'.
else
set backupfile = "$inputfile".backup
set i = 1
while ( -e "$backupfile" )
set backupfile = "$backupfile".$i
@ i = $i + 1
end
\mv "$inputfile" "$backupfile"
echo Backup of the original: \`$backupfile\'
\mv "$tempfile" "$inputfile"
echo Number of corrections for \`$inputfile\': $nerror.
endif

cleanup:
if ( $?tempfile ) then
if ( -e $tempfile ) \rm $tempfile
endif
--- Cut here for script file 'correct-netscape-mail-file' ---

--
Gey-Hong Gweon
The University of Michigan, Physics Department, Ann Arbor, MI 48109
(734) 647-9434 (Office), 763-3417 (Lab), 763-9694 (Fax)