ProfitPress Mega CDROM2 …eeware (MSDOS)(1992)(Eng)/ProfitPress-MegaCDROM2.B6I/BBS/NETMAIL/MSGCPY11.ZIP/MSGCOPY.DOC

Text File | 1991-10-10 | 7.9 KB | 182 lines

                                 MSGCOPY v1.10

                     A utility for Opus v1.70 and Fido V12
                                  By Frank Cox
                                FidoNet 1:140/53


     This program is truly public  domain.  You can give  it away, you can  sell
it, you can hack it, you can do whatever your little heart desires.  Also,  this
program is not guaranteed to do anything other than take up space on your  disk.
I have tested it here and it works for me but that doesn't necessarily mean that
it will work for you.  Use it at your own risk.

SO WHAT DOES IT DO?
-------------------

     MSGCOPY copies any unreceived messages that are to a user on the board into
the destination area and marks them as received  in the origin area so that  the
message won't be moved twice.  It will add a "* NOTE:  Reply to this message  is
area # Title." where # is the area the message originated from and Title is  the
title of the area to the top of the body of the message text.

     Why do you want to  do this?  The users  of my system like it because  they
don't necessarily have to call in every single day and they won't miss  messages
addressed to them that come through even the  most active echo areas.  I have  a
read-only message area on  my system called  "Echomail Replies to Local  Users".
MSGCOPY slams all unreceived echomail  addressed to local users into this  area.
I have O_RENUM (the Opus message renumber/deleter program by Steve Antonoff) set
to delete messages in this area that are either received or older than 45  days.
In this manner, even if a user goes  away for a few weeks vacation or  whatever,
all of the echomail addressed to him is still waiting on his return.

     An additional  benefit  is  that your  mail  waiting  announcement  program
doesn't have to read through all of the echo message areas when you use  MSGCOPY
- just your local message areas and the reply area.

     MSGCOPY will optionally read  a text file  containing names of users  whose
messages you do not want to copy.  For example, other sysops will likely receive
their echo mail on their own system -  if they call your system, the don't  want
to have  to re-read  the same  messages  again.   MSGCOPY will  ignore  messages
addressed to users whose names are specified in the text file.

HOW DO YOU USE IT?
------------------

If you run Opus, this is the command line you use with MSGCOPY:

MSGCOPY -O [-uUSER.DAT] [-sSYSMSG.DAT] [-eEXCLUDE.LST] [target] [area] [area]

Explanation:

     -O means run in Opus 1.70 mode

     [-uUSER.DAT] is the path and name of the USER.DAT file
          example   -uC:\OPUS\MISC\USER.DAT

     [-sSYSMSG.DAT] is the path and name of the SYSMSG.DAT file
          example   -sC:\OPUS\SYSMSG.DAT

     [-eEXCLUDE.LST] is a list of names to exclude from the search
          example   -eC:\OPUS\MISC\EXCLUDE.LST

If you run Fido, this is the command line you use with MSGCOPY:

MSGCOPY -F [-uCALLER.SYS] [-sFIDO.SYS] [-eEXCLUDE.LST] [target] [area] [area]
Explanation:

     -F means run in Fido V12 mode

     [-uCALLER.SYS] is the path and name of the CALLER.SYS file
          example   -uC:\FIDO\MISC\CALLER.SYS

     [-sFIDO.SYS] is the path and name of the FIDO.SYS file
          example   -sC:\FIDO\FIDO.SYS

     [-eEXCLUDE.LST] is a list of names to exclude from the search
          example   -eC:\FIDO\MISC\EXCLUDE.LST

In all cases  (both Opus and  Fido mode),  [target] is the  number of the  reply
holding area and [area] is a list of the areas to be scanned.

     If -s or -u options are not specified, the current directory is scanned for
USER.DAT and/or SYSMSG.DAT if the program is in Opus mode, or for CALLER.SYS and
FIDO.SYS if in Fido mode.  If no exclusion list is specified with the -e option,
all names in the USER.DAT or CALLER.SYS file will be included in the search.

     You can specify as many [area]'s as you can fit onto the command line.

     The Exclude.Lst file is  a text file containing  names of users whose  echo
mail you do not want to copy into  the target message area.  It might look  like
this:

          Jules Verne
          Jonathan Swift
          Edgar Poe
          Charles Dickens
          Thomas Hardy
          Walter Scott

     If this exclusion list was  specified, then MSGCOPY would ignore echo  mail
messages addressed to any of these gentlemen.

     It should also be  noted that MSGCOPY  is designed to  work with echo  mail
messages, not local messages.  Due to the  method used to read the messages,  if
you use it to copy  messages from a local message  area, the "* NOTE:  Reply  to
this message in area #" line will be inserted in the wrong place, one  character
too far into the body of the message.

EXAMPLES:
---------

     MSGCOPY -O -EC:\Opusstuf\Exclude.Lst 2 4 5 6 7 8 10 25

     This command line will operate in Opus  mode and read an exclusion list  in
the  C:\Opusstuf  directory,  read  USER.DAT  and  SYSMSG.DAT  in  the   current
directory, put messages into area 2, and read through messages in areas 4, 5, 6,
7, 8, 10 and 25.

     MSGCOPY -F -SE:\Stuff\FIDO.SYS -UE:\Stuff\CALLER.SYS 2 4 5 6 7 8 10 25

     This command  line would  operate  in Fido  mode  and read  CALLER.SYS  and
FIDO.SYS in  the  E:\Stuff directory,  would  not  use an  exclusion  list,  put
messages into area 2, and read through messages  in areas 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10  and
25.

     Errorlevels returned:

          0 - No fatal errors encountered
          1 - USER.DAT file not found
          2 - SYSMSG.DAT file not found
          3 - Target Message area not found

          4 - Operating mode (-O or -F) not specified

     Note that the  error handling  in this program  is not  exhaustive for  two
reasons - the additional code would slow the  program down a bit, and I was  too
lazy to write the  additional code anyway.   In other words,  if you run out  of
disk space, specify a file that does exist but is in an unexpected format  (such
as specifying a USER.DAT file  that is really a  SYSMSG.DAT file or running  the
program in the  wrong operating mode),  or similar  stuff, you may  still get  a
return errorlevel  of 0.   However,  in these  kinds of  situations, you  should
receive an error message of some sort on the screen.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
---------------

     MSGCOPY is an implementation of an idea for Opus 1.03 originally by Derrick
Cedars which was developed  further for both  Opus 1.03 and  Opus 1.10 by  Simon
Giles.  Actually, after seeing the initial program written by Derrick, I sort of
bugged Simon until he wrote a version that worked better.  However, alas,  Simon
is no longer in the nodelist.  This made it too difficult for me to bug him  for
yet another update of his program when Opus 1.70 was released.  So I had to dust
off the compiler and write a new version myself.

     This  implementation  of  MSGCOPY  was  written  completely  from  scratch.
Simon's implementation was written  in another language  which I don't know  too
much about.  So I just started again.

     Bob Swift (1:140/24) asked me to update this program so it would also  work
with Fido V12, which I did.

     I would like to thank  Bob for deciphering the  structure of the Opus  1.70
SYSMSG.DAT file and Fido's  FIDO.SYS and CALLER.SYS files.   I would never  have
succeeded in getting this program to work the way it does without him!

     Thanks also  to Roger  Franz  (1:100/380) for  testing  a version  of  this
program prior to the release of Opus 1.70.

COMMENTS, SUGGESTIONS, BUGS??
-----------------------------

     Comments or questions  can be  directed to the  author via  netmail at  the
above noted FidoNet address, or the old-fashioned way (pen on paper).  My postal
address is

                    Frank Cox
                    P. O. Box 2694
                    Kindersley, Saskatchewan
                    Canada  S0L 1S0

     Enjoy!