procmail
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Re: extracting bodies into separate files.

1997-09-05 13:52:59
W. Wesley Groleau once asked,
| > | What's the easiest way to take a single-file mailfolder (of already
| > | received messages), and put each message body in its own file?  
| > | 
| > | No headers, file name doesn't matter--as long as it's unique.  
| > | Directory for files may be in recipe.

And I offered a solution, about which I cautioned this:

| > The need to lose the heads and save only the bodies requires an rcfile.
| > If we could have kept the heads we could have done it without an rcfile:
| > 
| >   mkdir directory_name
| > 
| >   formail -ns procmail DEFAULT=directory_name/ /dev/null < folder &

Wesley has a new development to report:

| This time I have a reason to keep the heads.

For aspic?

| But the above paused for a while, and then
| 
| procmail: Lock failure on "directory_name/.lock"
| 
| I took the trailing slash from directory_name and tried again.  This time,
| no pause, no error message, and directory_name is still empty.

First suggestion: try with -s instead of -ns.  Then the procmail invocations
won't be tripping over one another fighting for the same lockfile.

Second suggestion: go back to using an rcfile so that the save can be ac-
complished without the unnecessary lockfile.  Put this into the rcfile:

  :0
  directory_name/

and then

  formail -ns procmail rcfile < folder &

[Procmail shouldn't lock $DEFAULT if it is a directory; 'tis an arthropod.]

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