Support for digest indexes has been added to release 1.7f. A digest index is a kind of table of contents - a digest without the actual messages. It gives the name of the poster, the subject, the number of lines and the date of each posting, along with a reference number which you can use to order the actual message (through the database functions) if you are interested. See the example below. Indexes are automatically available if the list offers digests AND the postings are archived. An index is sent to users who have requested this type of subscription (via SET listname INDEX, an alternative to MAIL and DIGEST) whenever a digest is issued. Thus, there is no need for an "Index=" option - indexes are an integral part of the digest system. I am not going to consider an option allowing indexes to be turned on when the list is not archived, with LISTSERV keeping the last 50 messages or 500k for a week so that people have time to order them, except that if there were more than 50 messages or 500k in the digest it should keep everything for 3 days, and then the last 50 for a week. I know there are many list owners who can't get disk space to archive their list, but this sort of system simply doesn't work, it costs more in wasted manpower than you'd save in disk space costs. With a bit of effort you can usually find a site with the disk space to host your list. The code is being made available for beta-testing as 17E-002D rev 6. The first index issued for any given list will contain question marks in a number of places if you were running 17E-002D rev 4 or 5 before - this is normal and can be ignored. Eric ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 03:16:34 +0100 Reply-To: Revised List Processor (1.7e) <[log in to unmask]> Sender: "L201: SEARN 201 list" <[log in to unmask]> From: Automatic digest processor <[log in to unmask]> Subject: L201 Index - 9 Jan 1993 - Special issue To: Recipients of L201 indexes <[log in to unmask]> Index Date Size Poster and subject ----- ---- ---- ------------------ 00014 01/09 15 From: Eric Thomas <[log in to unmask]> Subject: PIPE statistics 00015 01/09 140 From: Eric Thomas <[log in to unmask]> Subject: Mailer statistics The sizes shown are the number of lines in the messages, not counting mail headers. For your convenience, this message has been specially formatted to make it easier to order the messages you are interested in. Just forward this message back to L@SEARN (or [log in to unmask]) and fill in the line starting with "Print" (if there is not enough space, you can add more lines as long as you type "Print" on each new line). Make sure to use the forward command of your mail program, not the normal reply function. There is a lot more the LISTSERV database functions can do for you - for instance, you can select all the messages with a particular subject in a single command rather than retyping all the index numbers. For more information, send an INFO DATABASE command to LISTSERV (you could add it before the line that says "Database search" the next time you order messages from the LISTSERV archive). // JOB Database search DD=Orders //Orders DD * Select * in L201.14-15 Print <type the numbers of the messages you want here> /* // EOJ