Re: Please try Pmail

[Chong Yidong <cyd@stupidchicken.com>]

Richard M Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

> Pmail is basically working now.  I have used it for all my mail
> reading for weeks, and I have also gone through all the code making
> sure all the commands work.  So please try it.
>
> I see no reason not to include it in the next release.
> It should not cause any delay.

Thanks.  First, the swapping code in pmail should be tweaked to use
write-region-annotate, like in Stefan's 2008-12-30 change to
tar-mode.el.

Also, I've been wondering about the following code in pmail.el, which is
used to perform babyl-to-mbox conversion.  It uses temp-files to
transfer the data.  Would this lead to a security hole via symlink
attack?  Could someone suggest a solution?  (Maybe a simple fix is to
make the temp files in .emacs.d?)


(defun pmail-convert-babyl-to-mbox ()
  "Convert the mail file from Babyl version 5 to mbox.
This function also reinitializes local variables used by Pmail."
  (let ((old-file (make-temp-file "pmail"))
        (new-file (make-temp-file "pmail")))
    (unwind-protect
      (progn
        (kill-all-local-variables)
        (write-region (point-min) (point-max) old-file)
        (unrmail old-file new-file)
        (message "Replacing BABYL format with mbox format...")
        (let ((inhibit-read-only t))
           (erase-buffer)
           (insert-file-contents-literally new-file)
           ...