bug#10377: 23.3; unrmail fails to produce any output for a empty BABYL folder

bug#10377: 23.3; unrmail fails to produce any output for a empty BABYL folder

[Mark Lillibridge]

ts-rhel5 [128]% ls
RMAIL

ts-rhel5 [129]% cat RMAIL 
BABYL OPTIONS: -*- rmail -*-
Version: 5
Labels:
Note:   This is the header of an rmail file.
Note:   If you are seeing it in rmail,
Note:    it means the file has no messages in it.
                                                            
ts-rhel5 [131]% ~/bin/emacs-23.3-install/bin/emacs -batch -f batch-unrmail RMAIL 
Writing messages to /home/mdl/Tmp/now/RMAIL.mail...
Writing messages to /home/mdl/Tmp/now/RMAIL.mail...done
Done

ts-rhel5 [132]% ls
RMAIL


    There should be a RMAIL.mail file of 0 bytes above as promised by
the output messages.  This file is correctly created by the version of
unrmail in Emacs 22 and for non-empty folders by Emacs 23 unrmail.

- Mark

bug#10377: Acknowledgement (23.3; unrmail fails to produce any output for a empty BABYL folder)

[Mark Lillibridge]

I spoke too soon; this bug also exists in Emacs 22.

- Mark

bug#10377: unrmail fails to produce any output for a empty BABYL folder

[Glenn Morris]

Version: 24.0.93

Mark Lillibridge wrote:

> I spoke too soon; this bug also exists in Emacs 22.

And Emacs 21, which perhaps shows how important this issue is.

Anyway, I made unrmail give an explicit message (but still do nothing)
if the input file has no messages.

bug#10377: closed (Re: bug#10377: unrmail fails to produce any output for a empty BABYL folder)

[Mark Lillibridge]

GNU bug Tracking System <help-debbugs@gnu.org> writes:

>  [1:text/plain Hide]
>  Your bug report
>  
>  #10377: 23.3; unrmail fails to produce any output for a empty BABYL folder
>  
>  which was filed against the emacs package, has been closed.
>  
>  The explanation is attached below, along with your original report.
>  If you require more details, please reply to 10377@debbugs.gnu.org.


> Mark Lillibridge wrote:
> 
> > I spoke too soon; this bug also exists in Emacs 22.
> 
> And Emacs 21, which perhaps shows how important this issue is.
> 
> Anyway, I made unrmail give an explicit message (but still do nothing)
> if the input file has no messages.


    Please reopen this bug; the above "fix" does not fix the bug.  You
have to understand that unrmail in batch mode is used to process a set
of BABYL files to produce a parallel set of mbox files.  For example,

    find Rmail -type f -exec grep -q '^BABYL OPTIONS' {} \; \
          -exec ~/bin/emacs-22.3-install/bin/emacs -batch  \
          -f batch-unrmail {} \; >& log

Users likely would use further scripts to automatically move the
resulting *.mail mbox files into place.  The correct behavior is simply
to produce a zero length output file with no messages.

- Mark

bug#10377: closed (Re: bug#10377: unrmail fails to produce any output for a empty BABYL folder)

[Glenn Morris]

Mark Lillibridge wrote:

> have to understand that unrmail in batch mode is used to process a set
> of BABYL files to produce a parallel set of mbox files.  For example,
>
>     find Rmail -type f -exec grep -q '^BABYL OPTIONS' {} \; \
>           -exec ~/bin/emacs-22.3-install/bin/emacs -batch  \
>           -f batch-unrmail {} \; >& log
>
> Users likely would use further scripts to automatically move the
> resulting *.mail mbox files into place.  The correct behavior is simply
> to produce a zero length output file with no messages.


BABYL files with no messages are a fringe case of an obsolete format. 
Since unrmail has never produced output for these files, I'm not going 
to spend any more time on changing this now. If this is something you 
actually need to handle in practice on a frequent basis, I suggest using 
a handful of extra shell commands to check for empty BABYL files and
treat them separately.

bug#10377: closed (Re: bug#10377: unrmail fails to produce any output for a empty BABYL folder)

[Mark Lillibridge]

Glenn Morris <rgm@gnu.org> writes:

>  Mark Lillibridge wrote:
>  
>  > have to understand that unrmail in batch mode is used to process a set
>  > of BABYL files to produce a parallel set of mbox files.  For example,
>  >
>  >     find Rmail -type f -exec grep -q '^BABYL OPTIONS' {} \; \
>  >           -exec ~/bin/emacs-22.3-install/bin/emacs -batch  \
>  >           -f batch-unrmail {} \; >& log
>  >
>  > Users likely would use further scripts to automatically move the
>  > resulting *.mail mbox files into place.  The correct behavior is simply
>  > to produce a zero length output file with no messages.
>  
>  
>  BABYL files with no messages are a fringe case of an obsolete format. 
>  Since unrmail has never produced output for these files, I'm not going 
>  to spend any more time on changing this now. If this is something you 
>  actually need to handle in practice on a frequent basis, I suggest using 
>  a handful of extra shell commands to check for empty BABYL files and
>  treat them separately.

    I'm fine with you marking this as "won't fix" -- it is an obscure
case after all -- but I wanted to make clear that the bug still exists.

- Mark