Subj : Perl::JAM (was: txt2pkt.pl)
To   : Johan Billing
From : Maurice Kinal
Date : Sun Feb 20 2005 09:36 am

Hey Johan!

Feb 20 14:20 05, Johan Billing wrote to Maurice Kinal:

 JB> I would say that having a binary format at all is DOS-think. :-) 

Agreed.  I am still dealing with that outside of Fido.  The difference is that 
a simple bash script can be employed there (gps) since the data is well ordered 
and lends itself well to dynamic conversion to a more appropriate 
storage/archiving format.

 JB> Surely both storage and transport formats of fidonet messages could 
 JB> be optimized a bit, but I doubt that it would be worth the effort.

Exactly!  That is why I don't wish to bother with it other then on outbound 
pkts to an uplink.  Internally, locally or on a LAN there are more effecient 
ways to deal with messaging that could lend themselves well to conversion to 
ANY and ALL formats.  Hence my comment about a reduced basic "format" the is 
more or less 60% of the size of a packed Fido message, containing all the 
needed information to create a packed message, or even JAM if that is 
desirable.  :-)

 JB> By the way, I uploaded a slighly improved version of the module to 
 JB> the server. The main difference is that it now uses Time::Zone 
 JB> instead of
 JB> Time::Timezone as I think that the TimeDate package is much more 
 JB> common than the Time-modules package.

Okay.  I'll probably edit that and use the POSIX localtime module instead.  I 
find that to be the most useful and flexible overall for timedate formatting.

 JB> fcntl which is a pain to use in Perl and cannot be used in a portable 
 JB> way...

Understood.  There are some differences and I doubt any language or scipt can 
be made truly portable.  Good to discuss it so that future problems can be 
avoided wherever possible.  I can adjust accordingly and when appropriate here 
nd always appreciate a heads up when portability issues arise.

Life is good,
Maurice

--- Msged/LNX 6.1.2
 * Origin: Coffin Point - Ladysmith, BC Canada (1:153/401.1)

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