on Thu,09 Aug 2001, David T-G wrote:
> % I always thought that these mailbox files are just plane and simple
> % text files, that contain only the email, one after the other; and
>
> mbox-format files are just that; the status indicator you seek is
> X-Status: and if there isn't one mutt assumes the mail is new.
>
>
> % there is no data regarding what mail is new, what mail is replied,
> % what mail is read. Then mutt can not maintain these data my parsing
> % ONLY the mailbox file => there must be some other data file, or I was
> % wrong at the start :-))
>
> Nope; it's in the file -- but when mutt tells you about new mail it
> doesn't tell you anything about the mail in the mailbox but instead
> simply that the mailbox has been written to but not read from. You can
> fake new mail by using touch with -c (or is it -a) to test mutt...
It doesn't look like mutt actually needs anything IN the file to know
something is new. Only the access and the creation times maintained by
the operating system (OS) seem to be required for mutt to know mail is
new.
Try this: postpone a message, go to your postponed mail folder and edit
the file to remove the date in the 'From ' header line. When you exit
a new file will have been created for which the 'New' flag is set. The
file itself contains no date information at all or anything else mutt
could use to know it is new.
Basically Atiz is right and so are you except perhaps by saying it is
'in the file'. The access and creation times are only assessible from
the OS.
Chris
--
"..in the sun i'll feel as one..." -Kurt Cobain
