mbox(5)            Headers, Tables, and Macros            mbox(5)



NAME
     mbox - file containing mail messages

INTRODUCTION
     The most common format for storage of mail messages is  mbox
     format.   An  mbox  is a single file containing zero or more
     mail messages.

MESSAGE FORMAT
     A message encoded in mbox format begins with a  From_  line,
     continues  with a series of non-From_ lines, and ends with a
     blank line.  A From_ line means any line  that  begins  with
     the characters F, r, o, m, space:

          From god@heaven.af.mil Sat Jan  3 01:05:34 1996
          Return-Path: <god@heaven.af.mil>
          Delivered-To: djb@silverton.berkeley.edu
          Date: 3 Jan 1996 01:05:34 -0000
          From: God <god@heaven.af.mil>
          To: djb@silverton.berkeley.edu (D. J. Bernstein)

          How's that mail system project coming along?


     The final line is a completely  blank  line  (no  spaces  or
     tabs).  Notice that blank lines may also appear elsewhere in
     the message.

     The  From_  line  always  looks  like  From  envsender  date
     moreinfo.  envsender is one word, without spaces or tabs; it
     is usually the envelope sender of the message.  date is  the
     delivery date of the message.  It always contains exactly 24
     characters in asctime format.  moreinfo is optional; it  may
     contain arbitrary information.

     Between the From_ line and the blank line is  a  message  in
     RFC  822 format, as described in qmail-header(5), subject to
     >From quoting as described below.

HOW A MESSAGE IS DELIVERED
     Here is how a program appends a message to an mbox file.

     It first creates a From_ line given the  message's  envelope
     sender  and  the  current  date.   If the envelope sender is
     empty (i.e., if this is a bounce message), the program  uses
     MAILER-DAEMON  instead.   If  the  envelope  sender contains
     spaces, tabs, or newlines, the program  replaces  them  with
     hyphens.

     The program then copies the message, applying >From  quoting
     to  each  line.   >From  quoting  ensures that the resulting
     lines are not From_ lines:  the program prepends a > to  any



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mbox(5)            Headers, Tables, and Macros            mbox(5)



     From_ line, >From_ line, >>From_ line, >>>From_ line, etc.

     Finally the program appends a blank line to the message.  If
     the  last  line of the message was a partial line, it writes
     two newlines; otherwise it writes one.

HOW A MESSAGE IS READ
     A reader scans through an mbox file looking for From_ lines.
     Any From_ line marks the beginning of a message.  The reader
     should not attempt to take advantage of the fact that  every
     From_ line (past the beginning of the file) is preceded by a
     blank line.

     Once the reader finds a message,  it  extracts  a  (possibly
     corrupted)  envelope  sender  and  delivery  date out of the
     From_ line.  It then reads until the next From_ line or  end
     of  file,  whichever  comes  first.  It strips off the final
     blank line and deletes  the  quoting  of  >From_  lines  and
     >>From_ lines and so on.  The result is an RFC 822 message.

COMMON MBOX VARIANTS
     There  are  many  variants  of  mbox  format.   The  variant
     described above is mboxrd format, popularized by Rahul Dhesi
     in June 1995.

     The original mboxo  format  quotes  only  From_  lines,  not
     >From_ lines.  As a result it is impossible to tell whether

          From: djb@silverton.berkeley.edu (D. J. Bernstein)
          To: god@heaven.af.mil

          >From now through August I'll be doing beta testing.
          Thanks for your interest.

     was quoted in the original message.  An mboxrd  reader  will
     always strip off the quoting.

     mboxcl format is like mboxo format, but includes a  Content-
     Length  field  with  the  number  of  bytes  in the message.
     mboxcl2 format is like mboxcl  but  has  no  >From  quoting.
     These  formats  are used by SVR4 mailers.  mboxcl2 cannot be
     read safely by mboxrd readers.

UNSPECIFIED DETAILS
     There are many locking mechanisms for  mbox  files.   qmail-
     local  always  uses flock on systems that have it, otherwise
     lockf.

     The delivery date in a From_ line does not  specify  a  time
     zone.   qmail-local  always creates the delivery date in GMT
     so that mbox files can be safely transported from  one  time
     zone to another.



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mbox(5)            Headers, Tables, and Macros            mbox(5)



     If the mtime on a nonempty mbox file  is  greater  than  the
     atime,  the file has new mail.  If the mtime is smaller than
     the atime, the new mail has been read.  If the atime  equals
     the  mtime, there is no way to tell whether the file has new
     mail, since qmail-local takes much less  than  a  second  to
     run.   One solution is for a mail reader to artificially set
     the atime to the mtime plus 1.  Then the file has  new  mail
     if and only if the atime is less than or equal to the mtime.

     Some mail readers place Status fields  in  each  message  to
     indicate which messages have been read.

SEE ALSO
     maildir(5), qmail-header(5), qmail-local(8)









































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