Night Owl 6/Night Owl's Shareware - PDSI-006 - Night Owl Corp (1990).iso/007a/gmd_200.zip/GMD.DOC

Text File | 1991-02-24 | 12KB | 223 lines

                    Grunged Message Delete (GMD) Utility
                                Version 2.00


I.    What does GMD do?

      GMD deletes messages not "reasonably" conforming to 1.MSG format.  GMD
      will also delete messages which have strange characters.  Through
      command line switches, GMD provides the user some control over the
      meaning of "reasonably conforming" and "strange characters".  Command
      line switches also control other options such as which message areas
      are to be scanned for grunged messages.

II.   Why use GMD?

      There are two reasons you would want to use GMD.  First, grunged
      messages can caused some message renumbering programs to lockup.  Since
      message renumbering is usually a part of nightly processing, your
      automatic nightly processing is exposed to locking up while you are not
      around.  When you discover the lockup, you are faced with the task of
      finding the grunged message, deleting it and then completing the
      nightly processing.  It is not uncommon for the recovery process to
      last several hours at in inopportune time.

      The other reason to delete grunged message is to spare your users from
      seeing garbage.

III.  When do I use GMD?

      The recommended placement of GMD is just before the message delete and
      renumber phase of your nightly processing.  Running it once per day in
      this manner should be adequate.

IV.   What is a "grunged" message?

      This is a fuzzy question and it gets a fuzzy answer.  A grunged message
      is a message which does not reasonably conform to the 1.MSG format.  It
      turns out that strict conformance is not desired because so many
      messages fail to strictly conform to the standard (e.g., strict
      conformance to the standard requires two spaces between the year and
      time in the date/time stamp field of the message -- it is fairly common
      to have only one space).  Thus, strict conformance would result in
      deleting messages generally considered acceptable.

      GMD allows some customizing of the parameters used to determine a
      grunged message.  Because the content of the message body is so
      unstructured, GMD does not consider the message body when making the
      grunged decision.  GMD considers only the "Date", "From", "Subject" and
      "To" fields of the message header.  For each of these four fields, you
      can control two parameters.

      Those parameters are whether or not a zero length string is permitted
      and how many non-ASCII characters (characters with the high order bit
      set) are permitted.  This may seem very simplistic, but it is
      surprisingly effective.

      By default, zero length fields are permitted.  If you want zero length
      fields detected as grunged, specify the "-zlDate", "-zlFrom",
      "-zlSubject" and/or "-zlTo" switches on the command line.

      By default, no non-ASCII character in the "Date", "From", "Subject" or
      "To" fields occurring before the field terminating null character is
      permitted.  (Any character is permitted after the end of the field.)
      One of the classic symptoms of grunged messages is non-ASCII characters
      throughout the message.  It is this characteristic of severely grunged
      messages which is easy to detect.  Unfortunately, some message editors
      will insert a leading hex FF in their fields.  If no non-ASCII
      characters are permitted, these messages would be detected as grunged.
      By command line switches, you can relax this criteria and permit some
      non-ASCII characters before calling the message grunged.

      The command line switches controlling the number of permitted non-ASCII
      characters are "-Date:n", "-From:n", "-Subject:n" and "-To:n".  In
      place of the "n" after the colons, you should substitute the number of
      non-ASCII you will tolerate before the message is considered grunged.
      The default for all the above switches is zero.

V.    How do I tell GMD which message echos to scan?

      You tell GMD which echos to process by two optional switches on the
      command line.  The first switch is "-a<Areas.BBS>".  In place of
      "<Areas.BBS>" you must substitute the name and path of your
      ConfMail/QMail style Areas.BBS file.  GMD will read Areas.BBS and get
      the names of echo directories to be processed.  GMD will skip
      passthrough areas.

      There may be directories not listed in Areas.BBS which you want scanned
      for grunged messages (e.g., local mail and net mail).  You can specify
      additional directories to scan by specifying the switch "-d<directory>"
      as many times as you need.  In place of "<directory>" you must
      substitute the pathname of a directory you want scanned.  You must omit
      the trailing backslash.

      Mail processors such as QMail output files called "toss logs".  The
      toss log is a file which contains a list of echo area names where there
      was incoming mail.  The echos are listed one per line.  GMD can use
      such a file by specifying the "-e<toss_log>" switch, where "<toss_log>"
      is the toss log file described above.  When the "-e" switch is used,
      the "-a" switch must also be specified.

      The "-e" switch alters GMD's logic.  Normally, GMD will skip passthru
      areas because there are no messages.  When "-e" is specified, the
      passthru areas will be processed because there may be messages which
      have not been packed.  For non-passthru areas, the first message is
      assumed to be a "high water mark".  GMD will skip all messages before
      the high water mark.  The "-e" switch is designed to remove grunged
      messages as they come in (and before they are scanned and packed).

      When the "-p" switch is specifed along with the "-e" switch, passthru
      areas are skipped even if they appear in the toss log.

      At least one of  "-a" or "-d" switch is required.  You may specify
      both, and can use the "-d" switch as many times as needed.

VI.   Is there a way to have GMD move the grunged messages to a holding area
      instead of deleting them?

      Yes, you can accomplish this by using the "-b<BadDirectory>" command
      line switch.  In place of "<BadDirectory>" you must substitute the
      directory pathname where GMD is to move grunged messages.  That
      directory does not have to be on the same drive as the message
      directory.  However, it should be a directory used solely for the
      purpose of storing grunged messages.

      GMD will name the messages in this directory as follows.  The file name
      of the grunged message will be up to the first eight characters of the
      echo name.  The extension will be the lowest three digit number not
      already used to identify a message.  The date and time stamp of the
      original message is preserved.

      For example, the first bad message in the echo "TECH" would be named
      "TECH.001" in the bad directory.  If there were already a "TECH.001",
      it would have been name "TECH.002", etc.  For the echo "CONSULTING",
      the first bad message would be "CONSULTI.001".

      If the echo name contains illegal DOS filename characters, those
      characters are dropped.  For example, the first bad message in the echo
      "A.B.C." would be named "ABC.001" in the bad directory.

VII.  How can my batch file determine when GMD detects any grunged messages?

      GMD set the DOS errorlevel as follows:

          ErrorLevel     Meaning
               0         GMD ended normally and detected no grunged messages.
               1         GMD ended normally and detected grunged messages.
               2         GMD did not end normally due to error or ^C.

VIII. Is there a way to just get a list of the grunged messages and not
      delete or move them?

      Yes, you can specify the "-t" switch on the command line.  This puts
      GMD in test mode.  In test mode, GMD will not delete or move any
      messages, but it will list all grunged message file names along with
      their corresponding echo name.

      Although GMD does not have a log facility, you can re-direct the
      output.  Re-direction will work even if the "-t" switch is not used.

IX.   Can I control the amount of log detail GMD produces?

      Yes, you can specify the "-l:n" switch.  The value "n" sets the detail
      level.  The legal values are:

      Value    Meaning
        0      Only error messages are printed to standard error.
        1      Signon message is printed to standard error.
        2      Actions are printed to the console.
        3      As each echo area is processed, it is logged to the console.
        4      Progress for each echo area is shown.

X.    How long does GMD take to run?

      GMD takes about as much time as the fastest ReNum program.  You can
      speed this process up by specifying the "-f" switch on the command
      line.  "-f" places GMD in the fast mode.  In this mode, GMD bypasses
      normal DOS file structures and reads the disk directly.  (GMD never
      bypasses DOS when writing to the disk.)  This may not work for all
      versions of DOS or future versions of DOS.  How fast "-f" actually
      speeds up processing depends on disk organization and fragmentation.

      Since GMD does not directly write to the disk, it is safe to try the
      "-f" switch along with the "-t" to see if it works.  GMD has several
      internal consistency checks to insure it is reading the correct data.
      If the internal consistency check fails, the message "Fast mode
      disabled." will appear.  If this happens or GMD locks up, the "-f"
      switch should not be used.  All the assumptions made by the "-f" switch
      are fully listed in the source to the program.

XI.   Is there a quick reference available?

      Yes, simply run GMD with no switches.  It will print a summary of the
      above switches on a single page.

XII.  What licensing restrictions are there for using this program?

      There are some simple restrictions associated with using the program.
      You use this program at your own risk.  The author does not warrant the
      program works as described above or is even suitable for any particular
      purpose.  The above documentation is intended to describe how the
      program works in the author's environment.  The author does not claim
      it will work the same way in your environment or, if it does work, will
      continue to work.  Further, it is up to you to decide if the program is
      suitable for any particular purpose on your system.  The author
      sincerely hopes you find some use for it.

      The author freely releases this program along with its source to the
      public domain.  The program compiles and links using Turbo-C++ with no
      errors.  The author desires no fees for the use of the program and does
      not support the program.  The source is provided so you can make any
      changes you may need to make GMD suitable for your purposes.
      Basically, this program was a toy and the author has finished playing
      with it.  The author is not willing to make any further enhancements.
      Please do not contact the author with ideas for enhancements.  You have
      the source.  You make them.  As time permits, the author is willing to
      answer questions about techniques used and how the program generally
      works.  Also, John Souvestre (at 1:396/1) will attempt to answer
      questions as his time permits.

David Troendle (1:396/5)
February 24, 1991
New Orleans, LA