Re: Attach a number to each message

Philip Guenther's recommendation to jzc(_at_)sibs(_dot_)com read, in part,

|     :0 a
|     {
|       # I'm paranoid, let's have COUNT be at least 3 digits wide

I'd call that good planning, not paranoia.  It's a rare day when I get
fewer than 100 letters.

|       :0
|       * COUNT ?? ^..$
|       COUNT=0$COUNT
| 
|       :0 e

That should be `E', not `e'.

|       * COUNT ?? ^.$
|       COUNT=00$COUNT
|     }

Another method, cheaper on processes but longer on disk space, would involve
naming a directory for `date +%y%m%d`, saving there to mh-style folders, and
using $LASTFOLDER to derive the message index number.  We'll keep the indi-
vidual files in those directories as small as possible (one byte, in fact).

It would go something like this:

 :0c
 * conditions for this stuff
 file_where_incoming_originals_are_stored

 :0A
 {
  TODAY=`date +%y%m%d`

  :0fw # Form reply headers and lose body (intentionally) in one process:
  | formail -rt

  :0bc # if today's directory already exists, this should succeed
  $TODAY/.

   :0e # if it failed, there is a new day to initialize
   {
    :0hwic # remove all old counter directories and create one for today
    | rm -rf [0-9][0-9][01][0-9][0-3][0-9] ; mkdir $TODAY

    :0bc
    $TODAY/.
   }

  :0 # most common if you get 19-188 messages in a typical day
  * LASTFOLDER ?? /\/..^^
  { MESSAGENUMBER=${TODAY}0$MATCH }
  :0E # in case you ever get 1000 or more messages in a day, let it grow
  * LASTFOLDER ?? /\/...
  { MESSAGENUMBER=$TODAY$MATCH }
  :0E # can happen at most nine times in a day
  * LASTFOLDER ?? /\/.^^
  { MESSAGENUMBER=${TODAY}00$MATCH }

# Alternatively, you could accept message numbers of the form 960213/1,
# 960213/2, and so forth, and just assign MESSAGENUMBER=$LASTFOLDER instead
# of using the preceding block of assignment recipes.  Also, we won't have to
# worry about the width.

  :0bfwi
  | echo "Message number: $MESSAGENUMBER" ; echo ; cat autoreply.txt

  :0
  ! -t
 }

If you're willing to use month abbreviations instead of numbering the months
in your message numbers, you can build $TODAY out of the From_ line and not
have to run date(1).  In fact, a series of .procmailrc recipes could trans-
late three-letter the month abbreviation extracted from the From_ line into
two digits or two letters without running an outside program.