Not likely -- XML would not be a good fit. XML is a great solution for
getting structured data out of one system into another system, because
it allows you to define the meta data attributes right there with the
raw data. XML is a lousy solution for storing unstructured data that you
don't intend to send to a foreign system. Email has some loose structure
in the header, but the part you probably care about, body and
attachments, has practically no structure at all and can only be
indexed/searched with brute force. Since it'll be brute forced any way,
why add the bulk of XML?
Using a SQL database might make a little more sense, until you start to
think about how to build the tables and realize that this is putting raw
data into a system designed to hold meta data. Now building a SQL
database that indexes the meta data and spits out pointers to the raw
data would make more sense, if you can think of a way to extract useful
meta data from body and attachments without just throwing the whole
damned mess into the database.
There are two solutions that make sense to me:
1) leave everything in plain text mbox or maildir on a hard disk. When
you want to find something, use Unix tools. For instance,
#!/bin/sh
# This is a wrapper to the grepmail Perl script which searches mail.
# The wrapper will take regexp from the commandline, recurse through
# a mail folder, then put the results into a new box: "results.$TERM".
# If no parameters, show proper usage and fail.
if [ $# -lt 1 ] ; then
echo "Usage: grepmymail \"singleterm\""
echo "Usage: grepmymail \"(1term|2terms|3terms)\""
exit 2
fi
# Options: -R is recursive, -m adds a header line showing the mailbox
# the message was found in, -M skips MIME attachments, and -b searches
# bodies, not headers.
for TERM in $1; do
grepmail -RmMb $TERM $HOME/mail > /tmp/results.$TERM
mv /tmp/results.$TERM $HOME/mail/
done
2) Use Evolution and create vfolders when you want to look for
something. Note that these are not mutually exclusive as Evolution keeps
everything in plain text formats any way.
Jack
On Mon, 2003-06-09 at 16:28, Stephlub wrote:
> is anybody can help me?
> > ...and about an xml converter
> > mbox2xml maildir2xml anyproprietary2xml
> > (mailxml2mbox mailxml2maildir mailxml2sql...)
> >
> > 1 I think it very useful: convert and archive mail with xml for cataloging
> > reasons, from kmail
> > 2 less important: make kmail (and others) able to read this xml
> >
> > this could be wery interesting for sorting cataloging and fist: archiving
> > and have best access to archives
> > I can't figure out how to archive my emails and access it like with a DB.
> > Just make a small search seems to be impossible with kmail to me.
> > I used outlook and even if it's hard to manage archives, i could do
> > recursive search for mail of 2 years old... further true db management
> could
> > be great!
> >
> > This feature could exists yet. Just tell me.
>
>
>
> ______________________________________________________________________
>
> Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft?
> Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
--
Jack Coates
Monkeynoodle: A Scientific Venture...
http://www.monkeynoodle.org/resume.html
Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft?
Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
