Re: [Nmh-workers] mh-format and components with empty content

[norm]

Ken Hornstein <address@hidden> writes:
>>> %(exist) (and %(notexist)) would be better for the long run.
>>
>>Is there really a need for these?  I'm trying to think of when
>>it would be useful to distinguish %(notexist) from %(null), for
>>a component, but can't.
>
>Weeeelll ... Norm claimed he had a use case (or at least implied by
>his question that he did).  Norm?

I  want to write a Java program implementing a heuristic to determine which
Emails to backup to external media. The heuristic will depend on such
factors as a message's spam score, it's age, and whether or not it is
backed up elsewhere in the cloud. Whether I backup a message will depend
on its total merit.
For example ,messages going to
address@hidden, will be backed up at
http://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/nmh-workers/ and so will have less
merit.

One of the factors will be whether or not the message is one that
I sent to myself as a reminder. Such messages always have a header:

        Nag:

with no content.

BUT my question was just a question NOT a request. This is because
when "%{Nag}" returns null I can workaround by reading the lines
of the message to see which comes first, on the one hand an empty string
(indicating that I have read all the headers) or an
an end  of file, or on the the other hand the string "Nag:".


    Norman Shapiro