vms mail -> unix mail

[jia wang]

Hello, all the unix and vms experts out there,

I have a vms-unix mail question which needs your help. I would like
to transfer all the files under the [.mail] directory on a VAX
machine, which includes all *.mai files, to a unix machine. And is
it possible to access these mail messages from unix with all the
folder information preserved? I was told that someone has done
that successfully. I understand that some conversion or programming
could be involved, and will appreciate any hint.

Thank you very much. Also could you common copy my account when you
reply if possible, thanks again.

Jia

[bl...@umdsp.umd.edu]

In article <131...@netnews.upenn.edu>, wa...@anvil.wharton.upenn.edu (jia wang) writes:
>
>
>
>Hello, all the unix and vms experts out there,
>
>I have a vms-unix mail question which needs your help. I would like
>to transfer all the files under the [.mail] directory on a VAX
>machine, which includes all *.mai files, to a unix machine. And is
>it possible to access these mail messages from unix with all the
>folder information preserved? I was told that someone has done
>that successfully. I understand that some conversion or programming
>could be involved, and will appreciate any hint.

You should be able to do so, but as you noted above, it'll be a fair amount of
programming work. The file mail.mai is an indexed file, and it has pointers to
all the messages, folders, etc. So you'll have to find out the internal format
and write a C program to decode it. Note that not all mail messages are stored
in the mail$*.mai files; these are used only for the larger messages. Smaller
messages are kept within mail.mai itself.

Another, perhaps less clean, way of transferring the messages is to log onto
the vms system, get into the mail utility, and do a dir/folder. Now, for each
folder, do a
select folder-name
extract/all folder-name.list

Now the set of *.list files has all the messages for each folder in the normal
order. These are normal ascii text files, nothing special. Messages are
separated by a <ff> character. You can mget *.list these files over to your
Unix system. Now write a C program (or shell script) that scans the file for a
<ff> and breaks out the messages. It can also decode the (fairly simple) vms
mail header info and construct the proper header for <insert your favorite unix
mailer here>. When that's done, you should be ready to go.

So, while both methods involve a degree of programming, the method I described
at least gives you all the messages in a readable format and organized by
folders, so a major part of the work is already done. Using the original idea
would still involve writing the correct files for your mailer, so you aren't
really ahead of the game. The major drawback to the method I've described is
that you'll have to issue a lot of commands within vms mail just to get
started. Good luck.

P.S. If you do decide to use this method, you might think of posting your
eventual C code in vmsnet.sources. I know the objection: it doesn't run on
vms, so why put it there? The answer is that anyone else encountering your
same problem and asking this list could then be directed to an already working
solution for his system.

>Thank you very much. Also could you common copy my account when you
>reply if possible, thanks again.
>
>Jia

Oops; I should have read this before replying to your post. Oh well; I'll
email you and let you know there's an answer.

Larry Bleau
University of Maryland
bl...@umdsp.umd.edu
301-405-6223