! PAKEXTRACT version 1.1 ! Andy Harper, Kings College London 1 PAKEXTRACT This utility examines a specified folder in the user's default MAIL file and attempts to extract all the parts of a package, previously mailed to that user by the PAKMAIL utility. Such parts are normally in VMS_SHARE format. Format: $ PAKEXTRACT package number-of-parts [mail-folder] [options] 2 Author This utility was written by: Andy Harper Kings College London The Strand London England All users use this software at their own risk and the author accepts no responsibility for any errors arising from its use. The software may be freely distributed but remains the copyright of the author. 2 Examples $ PAKEXTRACT STUFF 10 Scans the NEWMAIL folder for the 10 messages making up the package "STUFF", extracts them into separate files called STUFF.nn-OF-10, edits the first part to remove the mail headers, combines the parts (in order) into a single file called STUFF.SHAR, and then deletes the individual parts. $ PAKEXTRACT STUFF 10 SOFTWARE NOJOIN Scans the SOFTWARE folder for the 10 parts making up the package "STUFF" and extracts them into 10 sequential files, each having names of the form "STUFF.nn-OF-10" (nn is the part number). The NOJOIN flag indicates that no attempt is to be made to combine or edit the parts into a single .SHAR file. This must be done manually. 2 Package This parameter is the name of the package. All messages which have a subject line that starts `package.nnn-OF-mmm' will be extracted into a file with the corresponding name. (nnn and mmm are the part number and total parts respectively). 2 Mail-Folder The name of the mail folder to search. This is optional and defaults to the NEWMAIL folder. 2 Number-Of-Parts Each package consists of a number of parts. This parameter specifies the number of parts in total that make up the package. 2 Options A comma separated list of options may be specified. Each may be abbreviated to the minimum unambiguous keyword. These options are recognized currently. 3 NOJOIN Specify that the files are to be extracted from MAIL but no further processing is to be done on them. This may be a useful if multiple parts of a package are found in MAIL and it is not clear which parts should be combined without further examination. By default, the files extracted from MAIL are edited (to remove initial mail headers from part 1) and combined into a single share file that can be run as a command procedure without any further processing. The individual parts of the package are then deleted. Should an error occur creating the combined share file, then the individual parts, as extracted, are not deleted to facilitate manual processing. 2 Overview When a user creates a multi-part package, using a utility such as VMS_SHARE, each of those parts can be mailed separately to other users. If the PAKMAIL utility is used to do the mailing, then each part of the package has a subject line of the form: package.nnn-OF-mmm ... optional comment ... [NOTE: older versions of PAKMAIL created subject headers in different formats; all are handled correctly by this version of PAKEXTRACT] Given the package name and the `mmm' value (the total number of parts), PAKEXTRACT can search for these parts and automatically extract them into external files. The extraction process does not change the content of the files in any way - although the initial VMS MAIL headers are removed. Once PAKEXTRACT has completed, the user has only to edit out the headers of the first part and append all the parts together, using a command like: $ APPEND/NEW package.%%%-OF-100 package.SHAR The absence of the NOJOIN option will cause this to be done automatically. If the package was created using VMS_SHARE, then the file `package.SHAR' need just be executed as a DCL procedure to reconstruct the original directory tree of files making up `package'. See documentation on VMS_SHARE and PAKMAIL for further details 2 Version This help describes version 1.1 of PAKEXTRACT.