pinging SELMA

I did a while back, but I've since mislaid the code. Andrew Martin ICQ: 26227169 http://members.ncbi.com/AndrewMartin/ http://members.xoom.com/AndrewMartin/

;# mailto: [bobr--dprc--net]

yes, so can eudora sort by subject (which I am currently using). The netscape browser also goes a long way to thread messages too. I am suggesting something which goes beyond just sorting by subject. You and I have the advantage that we never or rarely purge our email. If we did, we would find it difficult to go back on a thread by simply sorting by subject right after a [big] purge. A whole lot of people (those with hotmail accounts come to mind) aren't permitted the luxury of an infinite inbox. Daily pruning gets to be a chore. However, if we made it less of a requirement to have to keep a large history then we will invite more participation by people with smaller inboxes. [or those who have smaller inboxes because Rebol is not their only interest and they must share space] Suppose you were new to this list entirely, or perhaps, due to some other aberrant proggie, you lost or corrupted all your inboxes. Then what? How would a newbie be able (easily) to know where in the archives a thread started? do they even know of [the existence of ] the archives? Most subscribers lurk. lurking is polite and safe. lets make it so you don't have to come forward and ask "where is the start of the thread for the XYZ discussion?" an http reference like the one(s) at the bottom of this message gently announces that there is an archive and also how to get to it. lets make it so recovering a thread is quick so folks don't have to keep an infinite mailbox history. PriorMsg: http://rebol.org/userlist/archive/373/550.html ThreadHead: http://rebol.org/userlist/archive/370/103.html

Now that you mention it, here's a suggestion that I majáÜ–n February 1 to fix SELMA. There is a long-standing bug in the parse native in all versions of REBOL that affects the code in SELMA that parses subject lines. I've reported this bug to Feedback a few times. The parse bug still stands in all current (and experimental) versions that I have tested. Here's the last message that I sent on the subject: ------------------------------------------------------------ I found a bug in parse that affects the Repost function in the Selma source. I'll tell you more about the bug after I can do a little more analysis. There was also a potentially crash-causing call to to-integer for some subject lines, and "[REBOL]" used instead of list-tag. This will fix the Repost function: Repost: func [message /local here there re-cnt] [ re-cnt: 0 parse message/subject [ some [ to "re:" here: 3 skip [ "(" copy num digits ")" ( if num [re-cnt: re-cnt + to-integer trim num] ) | none (re-cnt: 1 + re-cnt) ] any " " there: (remove/part here there) :here ] ] parse message/subject [ here: any list-tag any " " there: (remove/part here there) :here ] insert tail trim message/subject " Re:" if re-cnt > 1 [ insert tail message/subject reduce ["(" re-cnt ")"] ] post message ] While you're at it, the parse rule in Process-Mail, [thru "re:" list-tag] can be changed to [thru "re:"] . This should work for the [ALLY] list as well. ------------------------------------------------------------ ...And here's some code that demonstrates the parse bug, that I also sent to Feedback: -----------------------------------------------------------[ REBOL [ Title: "Parse bug demonstration" Author: "Brian Hawley" Email: [brian--hawley--bigfoot--com] Date: 3-Feb-2000 ] ; First, with optional one "a" y-cnt: 0 parse a: "y a a y z" [ some [ to "y" here: "y" 0 1 "a" ; Note only one "a" optional here any " " there: (y-cnt: 1 + :y-cnt remove/part :here :there) :here ] ; This block should run twice, and does ] print [mold a y-cnt {(should be "a z" 2)}] ; Second, with optional more than one "a" y-cnt: 0 parse a: "y a a y z" [ some [ to "y" here: "y" 0 2 "a" ; Note more than one "a" optional here any " " there: (y-cnt: 1 + :y-cnt remove/part :here :there) :here ] ; This block should run twice, but doesn't ] print [mold a y-cnt {(should be "z" 2)}] comment { This error shows up when you use any form to express wanting multiple "a", including [0 n "a"], [some "a"] and [any "a"]. I haven't found any dependency on which letters you are searching for or how many, at least in this example. You know, if I had the source to parse I could figure this out for you, hint, hint :). } ]----------------------------------------------------------- I hope that this helps. Brian Hawley

Hmmm, I don't believe this is a bug. The 0 2 "a" matches two instances of "a". Check out: http://www.rebol.com/users/parspace.html "The parse function ignores all intervening whitespace between patterns that it scans." Try these: parse "a a a a a b" [0 1 "a" m: (print m)] parse "a a a a a b" [0 2 "a" m: (print m)] parse "a a a a a b" [0 3 "a" m: (print m)] . . . [0 2 "a"] is like saying [0 1 "a" 0 1 "a"] -jeff

Well, it took me a long time, but I figured out a bug in my test code that made it look like parse had a bug. It's not whitespace, but I still feel foolish now :( I formally apologize for the Feedback messages I sent. Reviewing the SELMA source I can't reproduce the bug I found before so it must have been fixed. Good! Another thing I haven't figured out is how Gabriele is able to consistently end up with a Re: after the list tag on all of his posts. It's not the messed-up thread sorting that results from this that gets me, it's that everything I can find in the SELMA source tells me it's impossible to do that! It's this behavior that got me searching the SELMA source in the first place. I hate it when I can't track down a bug :( Brian Hawley

Don't! Your efforts are not wasted. Someone may well have learned more about PARSE as a result of it. Reminds me of a story a pilot once told me about "flying the seatbelt". That's when the seatbelt gets caught in the door and when you're up in the air it starts rattling like mad and you start freaking out looking around for the problem and you end up "flying the seatbelt", instead of the plane, so you end up plowing into a mountain! :) Even pilots fly seatbelts occasionally. (How's that for a cheery anecdote?)

No apologies. That's what feedback's there for, but I think we could/should have spotted that earlier and saved you some frustration. :-) Hmm.. I suppose I should see if any bug reports were filled out on this one. (Yep) Well -- all's well that ends well.

Hey, Gabriele has magic SELMA confusing powers! -jeff