And the prize goes to... Re: Oops. And a brainteaser. Re: The Hosstraders retire

[Michael ODonnell]

>Tip: there were LOTS of files, each one with a filename of a
>string of decimal digits, the values of which grew by +1 with
>each successive message as it arrived (and they had not been
>sorted or renamed).  For instance, the messages bridging New
>Year's 2006 were:
>    <snip>                      <size>    <date>     <filename>
>    -rw------- 1 sconce users    4442 2005-12-31 12:15 4572
>    -rw------- 1 sconce users    3867 2005-12-31 12:15 4573
>    -rw------- 1 sconce users    3495 2005-12-31 16:16 4574
>    -rw------- 1 sconce users    4469 2006-01-01 15:29 4575


Ummm, FYI, it turns out that the local filesystem timestamps of
the msg files themselves are irrelevant; MH pays no attention
to that when it's processing your email.  To make that point
clearer, I invite you to stand in that directory and say:

   touch . *

...and then notice how absolutely nothing about how MH behaves
will have changed.  The only timestamp info that MH cares about
is what's contained in the msg headers.  What I'm getting at
is that your msg 4575 might in reality have been transmitted a
month before your msg 4574 but then been delayed in transit,
a situation that would be evident from the info in the msg
headers, despite what's shown above.  The only thing your local
filesystem timestamps indicate is when something on your system
touched the file in question.