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<title>MHonArc Resources: DATEFIELDS
</title>
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<dt><strong>Envariable
</strong></dt>
<code>M2H_DATEFIELDS=
</code><var>field1
</var><code>:
</code><var
>field2
</var><code>:
</code><var>...
</var><code>:
</code><var
<dt><strong>Element
</strong></dt>
<code><DATEFIELDS
></code><br>
<var>field1
</var><code>:
</code><var
>field2
</var><code>:
</code><var>...
</var><code>:
</code><var
<code></DATEFIELDS
></code><br>
<dt><strong>Command-line Option
</strong></dt>
<code>-datefields
</code><var>field1
</var><code>:
</code><var
>field2
</var><code>:
</code><var>...
</var><code>:
</code><var
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<p>DATEFIELDS specify the message header fields mhonarc will search to
determine the dates of messages. Each field will be checked in
<p>The value of the DATEFIELDS is a colon separated
list of message header fields to check. Since it is legal for
multiple fields with the same name to appear in a message header
(e.g.
<tt>Received
</tt>), indexed fields are supported. For example,
<b><DateFields
></b>
received[
1]:received[
0]:date
<b></DateFields
></b>
<p>The example says that mhonarc should check the second received
field, then the first received field, and then the first date field
to determine the date of a message.
<p>Indexing starts at
0. I.e. An index of
0 denotes the first
occurrence of the field,
1 denotes the second, etc.
If no integer index is specified, then
0 is used.
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<h2>Resource Variables
</h2>
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<h3>Using composition date
</h3>
<p>By default. mhonarc looks at the
<tt>Received
</tt> fields of
a message to determine a message's date. This tends to be more
accurate as it tells when the message was actually received (it is
better to trust a date/time you have control over vs what the sender
has control over). However, you may want to have the date based
upon the time the sender composed the message. The
<tt>Date
</tt>
field usually reflects the composition date. Therefore, the following
<b><DateFields
></b>
<b></DateFields
></b>
<p>Specified indexed fields can be used if mail you archive is known to
following a specific delivery path. Here is an example
<li>All incoming mail is first delivered to a central POP mail server
<li><a href=
"http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/fetchmail/"><tt>fetchmail
</tt></a>
is used to download the mail from the POP server to our local
<li>The local SMTP server delivers the mail to a local user account that
is used to archive the mail.
</li>
<p>With this scenario, we prefer to use the date stamp from the ISP
server since our local system may not always be up. Each step above
causes a
<tt>Received
</tt> header field to be added to the message.
Since
<tt>Received
</tt> fields are listed from final delivery point to
starting delivery point (i.e. each step inserts a
<tt>Received
</tt>
field above existing header fields), we want to base the message
date on the
3rd
<tt>Received
</tt> field (the one created by the
ISP mail server). Hence, DATEFIELDS shall be set to the following:
<b><DateFields
></b>
received[
2]:received[
1]:received[
0]:date
<b></DateFields
></b>
<p>We still specify fallback fields just-in-case.
<!-- *************************************************************** -->
<!-- *************************************************************** -->
<a href=
"fromfields.html">FROMFIELDS
</a>
<!-- *************************************************************** -->
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$Date:
2002/
09/
04 04:
09:
30 $
<br>
<img align=
"top" src=
"../monicon.png" alt=
"">
<a href=
"http://www.mhonarc.org/"
><strong>MHonArc
</strong></a><br>
Copyright
© 1998,
2002,
<a href=
"http://www.earlhood.com/"
>Earl Hood
</a>,
<a href=
"mailto:mhonarc@mhonarc.org"
>mhonarc@mhonarc.org
</a><br>