advice re mail

[Frank Reppin]

Hi,

David Bear wrote:

> I need to write a program the grabs mail from a standard mail folder
> and processes it.
> 
> The trouble is I have no idea what mail file format FreeBSD uses by
> default.  I am using postfix, and currently postfix is my mta and mda.
> I will be adding procmail as the mda.  I'm guessing procmail writes
> the same kind of file the postfix does... but here I'm showing my
> ignorance.  

the default behaviour is - afaict - mbox format. Thus you'll
have all mail in ``one'' more or less big file per user.
These files are stored in /var/mail (at least by default whilst using
postfix1 on a 4.3 and 4.7 fbsd) and carry the name of their respective
account.

> I will be using python as my language and there are modules for MH,
> maildir, mbox, and mailbox...  Anyone have any recommended reading for
> me to better understand what I need to do?

Well I've once hacked/reorganized (with the help of the cyrus 
ML/archives) sth to convert such an single mbox into cyrus imapd format 
(it utilizes `man 1 formmail`) ... since this process walks through 
every single mail in given ``mbox'' files it might be of interest for 
you or at least give you an idea on how to deal with this issue - if so 
- please drop me a line and I'll happily sent you the necessary scripts.

btw - these scripts are in perl - but not perl specific (doesnt use 
specific perl modules).

best regards,

frank

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