.mab to .ldif converter (commandline)?

[Rob]

Does anyone know where to find a working .mab to .ldif converter that
can be called from the commandline?
GUI tools don't have to be mentioned, Seamonkey itself can already
export the addressbook as .ldif
What I require is a tool that can be used in a batch job to convert
hundreds of .mab files to .ldif without clickety-click action.

[Mike Easter]

Rob wrote:
> Does anyone know where to find a working .mab to .ldif converter that
> can be called from the commandline?

My understanding is that .mab is based on the much maligned mork.

It seems very unlikely that anyone would create a tool specifically for
the purpose of restructuring/recreating mork-based .mab addressbook into
.ldif.

> What I require is a tool that can be used in a batch job to convert
> hundreds of .mab files to .ldif without clickety-click action.

If I were going to go looking, I would be searching for such tools as
'demork' or 'mindy'.

http://www-archive.mozilla.org/mailnews/arch/mork/primer.txt "This is a
very brief primer on the Mork text format"


This guy wrote a Perl script/hack to extract URLs from history.dat files
which are in mork format which his comments sections address the mork
format he is dealing with.

http://www.jwz.org/hacks/mork.pl "Let me make it clear that McCusker is
a complete barking lunatic. - This is just about the stupidest file
format I've ever seen."


--
Mike Easter

[Mike Easter]

Rob wrote:

> What I require is a tool that can be used in a batch job to convert
> hundreds of .mab files to .ldif without clickety-click action.

I don't know if we are talking about (quite) a lot of hundreds or (just)
a few hundred, but I think clickety-click exporting one-by-one might be
quicker than learning/digesting mork or finding/creating a
demork/mindy2ldif.

The mailpile people have made a mork importing function.

https://github.com/pagekite/Mailpile/wiki/Synchronizing-Mailpile-with-Thunderbird
A lot of people use Thunderbird (or Icedove) as their main mail
application, and may wish to use Thunderbird as their mail importer and
frontend during this phase in the development of Mailpile. There are two
things Mailpile can import from Thunderbird presently: Thunderbird's
mboxes, which contain mail, and it's Mork databases, which are contact
address books


--
Mike Easter

[Rob]

Mike Easter <Mi...@ster.invalid> wrote:
> Rob wrote:
>> Does anyone know where to find a working .mab to .ldif converter that
>> can be called from the commandline?
>
> My understanding is that .mab is based on the much maligned mork.

I know it is a mess. I also do not understand why the Seamonkey/Thunderbird
project has not converted those files to sqlite by now, like it did for
all other datastores. There appears to have been a project to do this,
it encountered a performance problem, and it was simply abandoned.
Unbelievable.

> It seems very unlikely that anyone would create a tool specifically for
> the purpose of restructuring/recreating mork-based .mab addressbook into
> .ldif.

Why? This is a very much required tool to move .mab addressbooks to
another platform. .ldif is widely supported as an import format.

[Rick Merrill]

This
http://www.fileinfo.com/extension/mab
says that SeaMonkey can open .MAB files.

[Keith Nuttle]

On 2/7/2014 10:17 AM, Rob wrote:

I believe a .mab file is the TB/SM address book. If the purpose of your
request is to get the information in one file, have you considered
exporting the address book to a CSV file. I beleive it can be done in
the native TB/SM address book, but I know it can be done with

ImportExportTools


https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/importexporttools/?src=userprofile

Morefunctionsforaddressbook.
https://nic-nac-project.org/~kaosmos/morecols-en.html
(Near bottom of page)

(In my set up I have the both extension, so I not sure where the
function comes from.)

If this is not what you want, have you tried googling

[Rob]

I know that. I already mentioned it in my post.

[Rob]

Keith Nuttle <keith_...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> On 2/7/2014 10:17 AM, Rob wrote:
>> Does anyone know where to find a working .mab to .ldif converter that
>> can be called from the commandline?
>> GUI tools don't have to be mentioned, Seamonkey itself can already
>> export the addressbook as .ldif
>> What I require is a tool that can be used in a batch job to convert
>> hundreds of .mab files to .ldif without clickety-click action.
>>
>
>
> I believe a .mab file is the TB/SM address book. If the purpose of your
> request is to get the information in one file, have you considered
> exporting the address book to a CSV file. I beleive it can be done in
> the native TB/SM address book, but I know it can be done with
>
> ImportExportTools

I need something that I can call from a script, not an extension for
the GUI browser.

Some .exe file that has 2 parameters, a .mab file path and a .ldif
file path.