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The 640 MEG Shareware Studio 2
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The 640 Meg Shareware Studio CD-ROM Volume II (Data Express)(1993).ISO
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MESSAGES.TXT
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Text File
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1991-05-28
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3KB
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74 lines
Format of the exported messages in Messages.Dat
This file contains records with a length of 128 bytes. There
are 3 types of these records: (1) Packet Header, (2) Message
Header, and (3) Message Text. All unused fields in the
records are normally filled with spaces, although you will
sometimes find the final Message text record will be filled
with nulls (#0) after the last text.
Packet Header
Packet Header - is always the first record in the file and
only occurs once. It contains only normal ascii text
(limitted to at most 128 characters) and should always
start with "Produced by ". The remaining text normally
includes a product name and copyright message.
Message Header
A message header immediately preceeds zero or more message
text records. Each Message header has the following
format:
Start
Pos Length Description
------ ------ -----------------------------------------
1 1 Message status flag (see below)
2 7 Message number (ascii left justified)
9 8 Date (MM-DD-YY)
17 5 Time (HH:MM)
22 25 To (left justified space filled - uppercase)
(Be sure to check the to field to spot
configuration type messages)
47 25 From (left justified space filled - uppercase)
72 25 Subject (left justified space filled - uppercase)
(a subject starting "NE:" should not be
echoed into a network)
97 12 Password (not really used leave blank)
109 8 Message reference number (ascii left justified)
117 6 Number of blocks (ascii left justified - number
of 128 byte blocks including 1 for the message
header)
123 1 Message active (ß or #225 = Active,
Γ or #226 = Inactive)
124 1 Conference number (Binary byte)
Message Status Flag has the following possibilities:
'~' Private, unread ' ' Public, read
'`' Private, read '-' Public, unread
'*' Private, unread
'+' Private, read
Message Text Records
The message text records immediately follow the the message
header. They contain straight ascii text (lines are
normally limitted to 72 chars/line although you may see
longer lines). Each line is followed by a "π" or #227
character to mark the end of the line (in place of the normal
CR/LF that would exist in a straight text file). The text
continues consecutavly and text lines do continue across
block boundaries. Some systems may have problems with
messages longer than 99 lines, although more recently this
no longer seems to be a limit. The last block should be
padded with blanks to fill the block, although on input you
may find it padded with nulls (#0).