Calling all Perl Gurus and BASH Masters

[Darkstar757]

Ok here is the issue I need to draft a script that will parse a standard Unix mail file and split the file when the mail on it is older than two months. I really need to do this in perl and sed and awk are ok as well. I really want to figure out how to do this on my own but I need help. Right now my script is able to read in the entire mail file and print it out. I need to know how to sort and split this file without damaging the standard unix mail file format.


Thanks so much guys,
Darkstar

 

[notfred]

What is the standard unix mail file format? I forget, I haven't looked at it in a while.

 

[Darkstar757]

ummm


same format as any imap incomming mail file

 

[notfred]

Yeah, I'm working on a windows machine at the moment and don't remember the format off the top of my head.

 

[blackdogdeek]

can you post the mail file you are testing on?

 

[revnja]

mbox or maildir format?

 

[Darkstar757]

i can post the sample because I have sensitive email in it.


However the file is on a sun machine using a standard email format here is a clip from the file header.


From MAILER-DAEMON Wed Jun 1 14:00:11 2005
Date: 01 Jun 2005 14:00:11 -0400
From: Mail System Internal Data <MAILER-DAEMON@sun0>
Subject: DON'T DELETE THIS MESSAGE -- FOLDER INTERNAL DATA
Message-ID: <1117648811@sun0>
X-IMAP: 1108847500 0000002506 Junk NonJunk $Forwarded $MDNSent $Label5 $Label1 $Label2 $Label3 $Label4
Status: RO

 

[NikPreviousAcct]

Maybe you should start here

 

[urname7698]

Originally posted by: Darkstar757
i can post the sample because I have sensitive email in it.


However the file is on a sun machine using a standard email format here is a clip from the file header.


From MAILER-DAEMON Wed Jun 1 14:00:11 2005
Date: 01 Jun 2005 14:00:11 -0400
From: Mail System Internal Data <MAILER-DAEMON@sun0>
Subject: DON'T DELETE THIS MESSAGE -- FOLDER INTERNAL DATA
Message-ID: <1117648811@sun0>
X-IMAP: 1108847500 0000002506 Junk NonJunk $Forwarded $MDNSent $Label5 $Label1 $Label2 $Label3 $Label4
Status: RO

Seems simple enough..
read into an array
loop through the array reading lines and writing to a new file
check the date line
change the output file name (split)
keep reading, writing output..

or in bash you could probably just do:
tail `egrep -n 'Date: <FILLINTHEDATE>' <FILENAME> | awk -F: '{ print $1}' ` <FILENAME> > beforedate
head `egrep -n 'Date: <FILLINTHEDATE>' <FILENAME> | awk -F: '{ print $1}' ` <FILENAME> > afterdate

Ok thats completely untested but you get the idea..

 

[Darkstar757]

urname thank you so much.
I owe you a Beer!