Subj : Compression question
To   : Jerry Schwartz
From : Peter Knapper
Date : Thu Jul 24 2003 09:58 pm

Hi Jerry,

 JS> From the Squish documentation:

 ... removed for brevity ...

 JS>           mail archive to 123/456 using the crash flavour.

You are right, thats what the documentation says about the SEND command, 
however I note that it does not say EXACTLY the same thing about the ROUTE 
command, and I also know from practical experience that the Squish Docs appear 
to be wrong on this point, because I NEVER process anything in NORMAL Flavour. 
My belief in this happened within a few weeks of moving from a DOS based 
Single-line system, to an OS/2 based Multi-line system, around 1992 I think.

When I ran a single line DOS based system, my ROUTE.CFG file was built 
"according to the book", and it seemed to work fine. The moment I moved to OS/2 
and went Multi-line, I started having all sorts of wierd (intermittent) mail 
routing/processing problems (mail would head off to another Hub, then return 
and be distributed like it should have the first time). I quickly altered all 
my ROUTE.CFG Schedules to the format I use today -
  1. CHANGE all mail into HOLD Flavour, 
  2. Manipulate all mail using only HOLD Flavour, 
  3. Then CHANGE the HOLD to whatever output Flavour I needed, 
and Squish has run perfect since I did that.

Incidently, I NEVER use NORMAL anywhere in my SQUISH PROCESSING (except perhaps 
for a final CHANGE to NORMAL), and Squish has processed my mail fine for 10+ 
years since I stopped trying to use SEND and ROUTE with CRASH/NORMAL/DIRECT 
flavours, and use only the HOLD flavour. My mail processing always uses the 
above sequence in each Schedule.


 JS> Note the repeated reference to "normal-flavoured." 
 JS> That's how I have always found it to work. 

Yes, it works like that, but not always... The failures I experienced were not 
common, but I certainly experienced them, and changing to my processing method 
above cured it 100%.


 JS> The only commands which operate on anything but normal-flavoured 
 JS> mail are LEAVE, UNLEAVE, and CHANGE. This is mentioned 
 JS> repeatedly in the documentation of each command.

Then why has Squish correctly processed my SEND and ROUTE statements using a 
Flavour of HOLD for both input and output packets, for 10+ years? I would be 
interested to hear if someone checked the Squish code on this, I would guess 
they might find a few things slightly different to what the docs say.


 JS> The example you gave doesn't help, because I don't know 
 JS> what the DEFINEs do and because I don't know how the 
 JS> mail is flavored by your message editor.

The DEFINES only contain a list of the nodes to process for each command and no 
FLAVOUR or other values at all. I use several different SCHEDULES, however most 
require very similar Node relationships, hence why I use common DEFINES for 
them.

Cheers...............pk.

--- Maximus/2 3.01
 * Origin: Another Good Point About OS/2 (3:772/1.10)

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