Norm wrote:
% folder +/tmp/inbox
/tmp/inbox+ has 20 messages (1-75).
% sortm
sortm: can't parse date field in message 66, continuing...
sortm: can't parse date field in message 67, continuing...
sortm: can't parse date field in message 68, continuing...
sortm: can't parse date field in message 70, continuing...
sortm: can't parse date field in message 71, continuing...
sortm: can't parse date field in message 72, continuing...
So I know, that messages 66-72 had a missing or badly
formatted date field and that sortm plowed on anyway. But
what happened to these messages. I would have guessed that
they would be left in place. But that's wrong. In this
instance, at least, they wound up at the end of
+/tmp/inbox. Did the programmer know that? I don't
know. But whatever he did know should have been passed on
to me.
One dodge which might sometimes be useful, would be to put
the details in the man page and have the
continuing... message cite the man page.
In this case, the details are already in the man page:
With the default of -nocheck, sortm sorts messages with a
missing or invalid "Date:" field using their file
modification times.
I think the warning message is OK, and I prefer brevity.
Or would you prefer:
sortm: can't parse date field in message 66, see sortm(1) man page,
continuing...
Or:
sortm: can't parse date field in message 66, using file mod time,
continuing...
Or?
David
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