Is there a method built-in to mhonarc to automatically take older
mail (say from last month or whatever) out of the current index
and thread list, and move it to another directory, file or whatever?
Nope, as others have said. The problem is what to do with derived
files. Now if the operation is to move messages to an "old" place
where the old place only contains old messages from a single archive,
it may not be that difficult. However, if the "old" archive is
to contain messages from multiple archives, it is a problem. Dervied
files may have to be renamed and message files modified to contain
the new name. Also message filenames will need to be changed.
The other problem is mhonarc can only deal with one database file
at a time, making manipulation of multiple archives difficult.
Using packages and Perl 5 references (and classes) will make things
easier, but it will take considerable time to rewrite mhonarc using
Perl 5 constructs (packages under Perl 4 could be used, but eval would
be used alot to resolve pseudo symbolic references). I converted my
SGML DTD parsing library into a Perl 5 class (with the side-effect of
learning Perl 5), and it requires a line-by-line check to do the port.
It's worth it when I got the time. Now I can instantiate multiple
DTD objects instead of one. When ever MHonArc gets converted over,
I'd like to be able to instantiate multiple archive objects (and
possible use the DB modules to store archive information). Do not
hold your breath for the port, however. (I need to find a job that
pays me just to develope my tools ;-)
You've seen what I mean...Archive sites often only list the most
current notes on the index and then archive them into other files
based on date or whatever. This way you don't keep making your index
file bigger and bigger until its HUGE (thousands).
v2.0a2 supports multi-page indexes. This may provide some use for
large archives.
I could do this manually once a month, or write a script (would
rather not if I don't have to), so I thought I'd check and see if its
built-in first. DIdn't find anything in the documentation about it.
Others have given great suggestions using Procmail or other filtering
tools to obtain desirable results. Maybe some day mhonarc may provide
some built in capabilities, but it is not critical on the todo list
since tools like Procmail can be used to achieve sufficient results.
Maybe Procmail examples need to be added to the FAQ.
--ewh
