Adding New Messages to an Archive

MHonArc supports the ability to add new messages to an existing archive via the -add option. If no mailbox/folder arguments are given, MHonArc assumes that a SINGLE message is being added to the archive via standard input. Otherwise, MHonArc adds the messages contained in the mailboxes/folders specified.

When adding new messages to the archive, MHonArc performs the following steps:

Creates a lock file. This insures only one MHonArc process is updating the archive at any given moment. See Archive Integrity for more information.
Reads the database file. The name, and location, of the database file can be explicitly specified via the M2H_DBFILE and M2H_OUTDIR environment variables or the command-line options -dbfile and -outdir. Otherwise, the current working directory is used.
NOTE: The database file must be in the same location as the archive since the M2H_OUTDIR variable and -outdir option also specify the location of the archive.
The database file contains data to update any mail threads and the resource settings when MHonArc was last invoked. This allows new messages to contain the same formatting/resource specifications as existing messages in the archive without having to re-specify the resources each time new messages are added. Resources defined in the database file override the environment variables.
NOTE: If no database file is found, MHonArc will creates a new archive.
Read the MHonArc resource file, if specified. The resource file will override any settings contained in the database file.
Read the settings specified on the command-line. Command-line options override any settings in the database and/or resource file.
Processes the new messages and writes them out to HTML.
Rewrites the index page to reflect the update.
Writes a new database file containing the new state of the archive and all (new) resource settings.

See Notes on Adding New Messages for more information on adding new messages to an archive.

Examples

Adding a Single Message to Archive

MHonArc can be used to add new messages as they are received by using the ".forward" file in your home directory. Here is how I would set up my .forward file to invoke MHonArc on incoming mail:

\ehood, "|/mnt/ehood/bin/webnewmail #ehood"

NOTE on .forward entry:: The "\ehood" tells sendmail to still deposit the incoming message to my mail spool file. The "#ehood" Bourne shell comment is needed to insure the command is unique from another user. Otherwise, sendmail will not invoke the program for you or the other user.

"webnewmail" is a Perl program that calls MHonArc with the appropriate arguments. A wrapper program is used instead of calling MHonArc directly to keep the .forward file simple. Here is the code to the webnewmail program:

#!/usr/local/bin/perl

$cmd = "/mnt/ehood/bin/mhonarc -add -quiet " .
         "-outdir /mnt/ehood/public_html/newmail";
open(M2H, "|$cmd");
print M2H <STDIN>;
close(M2H);

The webnewmail can be modified to check the mail header before calling MHonArc to perform selective archiving of messages. For example, webnewmail can check the To: field and only archive messages that come from a specific mailing list.

Cron Example

This example uses cron(1) to update some mail archives from MH mail folders.

The following entry is in my crontab file:

0 0 * * * webmail

webmail is a script executed every night that calls MHonArc to perform the update:

#! /bin/csh -f

umask 022
setenv M2H_RCFILE $HOME/.mhonarc.rc
## WWW messages
mhonarc -add \
          -outdir $HOME/public_html/doc/wwwmail \
          $HOME/mail/www
folder +www >& /dev/null
refile first-last +www.ar >& /dev/null    # Archive original messages

## Tools messages
mhonarc -add \
          -outdir $HOME/public_html/doc/toolsmail \
          $HOME/mail/tools $HOME/mail/dtd
folder +tools >& /dev/null
refile first-last +tools.ar >& /dev/null  # Archive original messages
folder +dtd >& /dev/null
refile first-last +dtd.ar >& /dev/null    # Archive original messages

folder +inbox >& /dev/null                # Set current folder to inbox

To avoid mail everynight from cron due to output from MHonArc, the -quiet option can be used for each call to MHonArc, or use the following line in your crontab file:

0 0 * * * webmail > /dev/null

Standard error is not redirected to /dev/null so mail is still received if errors occured during MHonArc execution.

Notes on Adding New Messages

As stated earlier, the database file must be in the same location as the index page and HTML mail messages.
Sorting options can be changed when adding new messages to an archive. I.e. You can change from "chronological sorting" to "reverse chronological sorting" and vice-versa by specifying the appropriate command-line option, or changing the resource file.
The index page can be reformatted during an add operation. See Index Page Customization for more information on controlling list formatting.
Changes in mail header formatting rules (via the Resource File) will not affect existing messages in an archive. If formatting changes are required for existing messages, you must regenerate the archive from the source mail messages.

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MHonArc 1.0.0 -- Adding New Messages