MsgLink ---- Revision: 1.0b
MsgLinkOS2 - Revision: 1.0b
by Bill Andrus, SysOp of FidoNet Node 1:109/301.10
Documentation by Dot Hage, SysOp of FidoNet Node 1:109/530.0
This executable program is based on released sources of
Bob Hartman. This executable program is in the Public
Domain as part of the BBS project. For information on
BBS (Bit Bucket Software), contact 132/101 or 141/491.
CRC routine copyright Renex Corporation. Used with
permission of Ray Gwinn.
MSGLINK.EXE is the DOS version, MSGLINKP.EXE is the OS/2 Protected
Mode one.
This utility is used to link messages that form part of a particular
"thread." A thread is a series of messages which are replies to each
other, usually on the same topic. The way that MSGLNK works is to take
the first message and look at the Subject line. Say the subject line
says "Hard drives." Then it will search out each message, in numerical
sequence, which has a subject of "Hard drive" and will link it into the
reply-chain with the first message. It will ignore the "Re:" that some
message editors insert on the subject line when replying to a message.
Thus, the following are considered the same by MSGLNK:
Subject: Hard drives
Subject: Re: Hard drives
Subject: RE: Re: Hard drives
Note that the messages are linked in strict numerical order, with no
reference to date. In some echo conferences, a reply can appear on
someone's system before the original message being replied to appears.
In cases like that, MSGLNK will link them together, but they will be
linked in the order in which they appear on your system, not
necessarily in the order in which they were originally entered on the
originating systems.
Unlike ReplyLnk 1.0, upon which most of MsgLink is based, this program
does NOT do FAT-structure-specific I/O, resorting instead to slightly
higher I/O routines like Remapper uses. This program has NOT
experienced any problems operating in LAN, large or extended FAT
partitions, or high performance highly cached disk systems. Neither
Bob Hartman or Spark Software bear any responsibility if this program
does anything nasty to your system.
Usage: MsgLink [-o] [-q] dir [dir] [dir] ...
MsgLink -f areas.lst [-o] [-q] [+areas.bbs]
Switches f, o and q can follow a '-' or '/'
f indicates a filename will follow which contains a list of
area name(s) found in an areas.bbs file. For example, there
might be certain times of day when you would want to run
MsgLink only on a subset of your message areas. You could
list them here. If no file is specified, the full AREAS.BBS
is used.
o specifies Opus 1.1x SYSTEMxx.DAT instead of SYSTEMxx.BBS
q requests quiet operation (nothing is written to the screen)
dir is a directory path, a SYSTEMxx.BBS number (0-99),
a SYSTEMxx.DAT number (0-255) if -o, or echomail area name
areas.lst is a list of named echomail areas to process
areas.bbs is the areas.bbs file to read to find the echomail areas
=======================================================================
Change History:
03/13/90: Added skip of leading # to get_word, for pesky QMail users.
03/19/90: Added '-' or '/' switch logic, quiet mode operation
06/11/90: Added '-o' switch to use Opus 1.1x SYSTEMxx.DAT numbers
09/17/90: Fixed normal exit to insure ERRORLEVEL 0 if successful