Using MHonArc, I create hypertext archives of three different mailing
lists that I let people see. I'm using Procmail to detect and
route the messages to the proper IN.* file (I use the "mbox" option
on MHonArc), and then use cron to check once an hour to see if
there any new messages in the appropriate IN.* file.
For some strange reason (which could be more related to cron than
MHonArc, but I'm not sure), on two of the lists MHonArc is actually
invoked every hour, whether or not the IN.* file has been updated.
The third one works as I expect, that is, MHonArc actually runs (and
updates the msg*.*, threads.html, and maillist.html files) only when
it detects that there are new messages.
I've gone over the respective *.rc files for each archive, and
they're virtually identical. I'm invoking MHonArc from cron in
exactly the same way (with the same options) on all of the lists,
using the "quiet" option.
Could you post how you are invoking mhonarc via cron? This may
help.
This "rerunning" is a problem, because I'm letting my users know the
date when the archive was last updated using the "flastmod"
server-side include function, and on the two malfunctioning lists it
always shows that the archive was updated today, even though the
most recent message may be days ago.
Hmmm. I'm unfamiliar with "flastmod" and how it explicitly works.
Once thing to try is to use the $CURDATE$ or $GMTDATE$ variables
in your index pages customization resources. If mhonarc updates
an archive, these variables will get expanded to the date/time the
archive was modified. I.e. It may be unnecessary to utilize
a server-side include to tell your readers when the archive was
last updated.
--ewh
