P3D Re: Digests structure

[Bob Wier <wier@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 12:13 PM -0700 on 1/19/98, MO Rezchikov Dmitri wrote:


|> I was wondering if it was possible to organize
|> photo-3d digests based on topic rather
|> than on the time messages are received.
|> 
|> The way I see it, I would receive a message
|> with all the replies to it incorporated in this
|> message (this means that each day I would
|> receive several messages instead of one
|> digest).  I believe it would be easier to follow
|> the discussion and would also eliminate the
|> necessity of  repeating the text of the initial
|> message several times.
|> 
|> Dmitri Rezchikov
|> 
|> 

I investigated this sometime ago (this is called "threaded message
organization"). The difficulity is that so far as I've been able to 
locate, to do this you have to have a separate directory entry for
each message (that is, each message is a file). As some of you may know,
when you deal with large hard disks, it's not uncommon for the space 
required for the directory entry (ie, the filename) to be larger
than the actual message. With some 2,500 digests now (with, say
30,000 messages at maybe 15 msgs per digest) the overhead
in disk space usage would become prohibitive. On the other hand, if
anyone knows of a UNIX based threader that doesn't have this problem,
let me know!

The current structure looked like the best compromise - there is *some*
overhead, but the ratio of the directory entry vs the file size isn't
too bad. 

To follow a thread, the best way is to do a search via the web
page search engine. Assuming RE: type subjects, you'll get a display
of the original plus followups, and you can click on them to bring them
in to read them.

By the way, right now the entirity of the various ***-3D ftp archives
comprise about 120Meg (of which 30 meg is overhead - file indices, 
directory entries, etc).

THANKS

               Bob Wier
         mailto:wier@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
  12:43 PM  Monday, January 19, 1998
     Rocky Mountain College, Billings MT.
 keeper of the Photo-3d and Overland-Trails
mailing lists and the USA GPS Waypoint server 



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