On Fri, 19 Nov 2004, S Lamido wrote:
> I have now mastered deleting a log. Thank you all.
> A log can contain many messages so now can somebody explain now to
> deleted a single message.

Are you working as a listowner, or as a LISTSERV(tm) host site
postmaster/administrator/maintainer?  Usually, listowners do not delete
entire list logs (the archives).  Host site administrator do that, or,
I think, it can be set to be done automatically, like the logs are kept
for X period of time, then automatically dumped (I think you can do that
with the Notebook= keyword, but won't swear to it as that is a list header
keyword I don't touch, except for the very end parts, where I know, I
think, what I'm doing).  For example, if you want keep the logs for only
six months/weeks/days I think you can set the list header, though I don't
know exactly how as it isn't anything I've ever been interested in;  the
logs are the archives, the history of the list, warts and all.  I don't
mess with the list logs unless I really have to fix a technical problem,
or someone seems to have a good case for a legal suit unless whatever
is deleted, in which case only the least which must deleted is, with a
marker stating that material was deleted..

As to deleting one item/posting from a log, well, that is not a good idea,
though if you are deleting entire logs I guess you don't need to worry
about the indexing problems.  So ........

First, identify the log you want to work one.  You can get a list
of the logs with the command
INDEX listname

If your list is a discussion list and subcribers are free to
post at will, set the list to HOLD, which will prevent anything being
added to the log while you are working on it (you will have a mess if
you forget to do this and someone posts an item to the list while you
are working on the current, active log).  The email command for that is

HOLD listname       (replace listname with the name of you list)

If you, as listowner, control all postings you can skip the HOLD command,
but be sure all approved postings have been distributed before you GET
the log.  You can also skip the HOLD if the log you want to work on is
an old, complete, noncurrent log as there won't be postings automatically
added to it.

Now, GET the log.  For example, if you have weekly logs and you want the
current, active, log, since it is now November 19, 2004, you would send the
command

GET listname LOG0411C

You now have the log you want to work on.  Edit it and PUT it back.
How you do this will depend on the mail system you use.  I use UNIX/Linux
Pine, so what I say is based upon that.

You have to put the file (log) back, modified or not, so you use a PUT
line exactly like your GET line, replacing PUT with GET, and adding
your listowner password at the end, thus

PUT listname LOG0411C PW=xxxxxxxxx

I always do that first as I don't like having to resent the thing because
I forgot that.  That must be the first line and be sure there is not
a seeming blank line between the command and the start of the log itself.

Now, find the item/posting you want to work on/remove.  Items within the
log are separated by  ========== lines starting in the first column.
If you want to totally eliminate an item, edit out everything between
the two   =========== lines so you have two =========== lines in imediate
secquence.  Delete one of those lines, doesn't matter which.

Send it off to your LISTSERV host site and voila, the posting is no longer
in the archives.  But you no longer have honest archives, and no warranty
as to weird things which can happen to your archive indexing.  Better, if
you must modify the log, is to deal with whatever is the problem, but leave
an explanation of what you did, and why.  LISTSERV doesn't care what the
text is, nor what the header says, as long as there is *something* there in
the proper format, which will preserve the indexing.

Last step, after you have PUT the edited log, is to FREE the list.
That is, if you issued a "HOLD listname" command, now send a
"FREE listname" command.  If you didn't use a HOLD command to start with
you can skip this step.

Obviously implied is that you can add an item which was never posted to the
list.  Not advised, it will really screw up the indexing, besides being
dishonest.  However, sometimes there are glitchs in the creation of the
logs, and two different postings, on different topics, are considered to be
one posting, one item.  You can fix that by editing the log to read as it
should were it not for this glitch in archive/log/notebok creation (don't
tell me it doesn't happen; in a list with 107,000 items over 14 years I
know of at least four instances, and there may be others I just haven't
stumbled across).  In effect, you are adding a new item to the log, far as
LISTSERV is concerned.  Doing that *will* muck up the indexing, so you have
to decide which is better, separate postings findable with a search as
such, or pristine indexing?

If you are severly dyslexic you might want to print everything out rather
than trying to read from the CRT.  I am not dyslexic far as I know (my
brother is extremely dyslexic) but there are few things I detest more
than reading from a computer video monitor.

Douglas Winship   [log in to unmask]