Sorting mail files chronologically on Unix

[Taed Nelson]

>>If someone actually goes to the trouble to develop such a program, I'm
>>sure that they'd find a large number of people who'd be interested in it.

Some kind soul sent me this script a while back when I asked the same
question.  If the name is not in the comments, then I don't know who wrote
it.  It is included below.

It is followed by an AWK script which I wrote (borrowing from the
aformentioned program) to delete any pieces of mail which have a Subject which
starts with the character `@'.  The reason I have this is because I save all
of my outgoing mail in a record, but sometimes I send out junk that I don't
want wasting space in my record.  By putting an `@', I allow that mail to be
deleted when I run the script under AWK.

SORT MAIL:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#!/bin/sh
#
# sort mail in a folder chronologically
#
# From unido!uunet!amdahl!rtech!llama!daveb Thu Jan 28 09:00:34 1988
# Received: by fb10vax.sbsvax.uucp; Thu, 28 Jan 88 09:00:32 +0100 (MET)
# Date: Wed, 27 Jan 88 16:54:52 pst
# From: unido!uunet!amdahl!rtech!llama!daveb (Dave Brower)

new=sorted.$$

myname=`basename $0`
case $MAILSORT in	# assume MAILSORT is an env. variable
  -v)
	RMFLAG='-i'
	;;
  *)
	RMFLAG='-f'
	trap 'rm -f $new ; exit' 0 1 2 3 5 9
	;;
esac

case $# in
  '')
	echo -n "Name the mail folder to sort: "
	read old
	;;
  1)
	old=$1
	;;
  *)
	echo "Usage: $myname old"
	exit
	;;
esac

if [ ! -f $old ]
  then
	echo "$old: no such file"
	exit
elif [ ! -w $old ]
  then
	echo "$old: no write access"
	exit
fi


awk '

BEGIN {
	month["Jan"] = 1
	month["Feb"] = 2
	month["Mar"] = 3
	month["Apr"] = 4
	month["May"] = 5
	month["Jun"] = 6
	month["Jul"] = 7
	month["Aug"] = 8
	month["Sep"] = 9
	month["Oct"] = 10
	month["Nov"] = 11
	month["Dec"] = 12
}

/^From / {

    ++msg

    if( NF == 7)
	hold = sprintf("%s:%02d:%02d:%s %d", $7, month[$4], $5, $6, msg)

#    if( getline && NF == 7 && $1 == "Date:")
#        hold = sprintf( "19%s:%02d:%02d:%s %d", $5, month[$4], $3, $6, msg)

    print hold
}

' $old | sort -n |  sed "s/.* \(.*\)/s \1 $new/" | mail -f $old > /dev/null

if [ $? = 0 ]
then
	mv $RMFLAG $new $old
	echo "$old is now sorted"
else
	echo "Problems sorting $old, left untouched"
fi

------------------------------------------------------------------------------




KILL MAIL:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# The AWK script which deletes all mail on stdin with the first subject
#   character as `@'.
# Written April 1991 by Taed Nelson (nelson at desktop.nsc.com)

# Place the message or the packet record in the appropriate file.
function sortMessage() {
	if ((saveMode != KILL) && (saveMode != NONE)) {
		# Don't use "i in messageStore" since it doesn't keep the order
		# Also, get rid of trailing blanks since I hate them
		for (i=1; i <= (numLines - trailingBlanks); i++) {
			print messageStore[i];
			delete messageStore[i];
		}

		# Make sure there's a newline between the records
		printf ("\n");
	}
}


BEGIN {
	numLines = 0;

	NONE = 0;
	KILL = 1;
	MESSAGE = 2;
	UNKNOWN = 3;

	# So that we don't have any output if there are only kill messages
	saveMode = NONE;
}


# The "From" line contains the date we received the message.
# It better be the first line, or it's going to get confused.
($1 == "From") && (NF == 7) {
	sortMessage();

	saveMode = UNKNOWN;
	numLines = 0;
	++messageNum;
}


# If we know we're collecting a kill or the whitespace between messages,
#   we can skip to the next message.
(saveMode == KILL) || (saveMode == NONE) {
	next;
}


# Always collect the text of the messages.
{
	messageStore[++numLines] = $0;

	if ((saveMode == UNKNOWN) && ($1 ~ /^Subject:$/)) {
		if ($2 ~ /^\@/) {
			saveMode = KILL;
		}
		else {
			saveMode = MESSAGE;
		}
	}

	if ($0 ~ /^$/) {
		trailingBlanks++;
	}
	else {
		trailingBlanks= 0;
	}
}


# Don't forget to sort the last message!
END {
	sortMessage();
}