On Fri, 2005-07-29 at 11:36 -0700, Craig White wrote: > On Fri, 2005-07-29 at 11:27 -0700, Lynn David Newton wrote: > > Using dd to cut a large mail spool file blindly cuts it > > at some random place. It would be better to split it at > > the beginning of messages. An email message begins with > > the string "^From ". > > > > I played a couple of minutes with csplit(1) (context > > split), which looks like a possibility, and used to > > understand, but it's been 10-15 years since I've used > > it for anything, and couldn't quite make it work. But > > I'll bet with a little experimentation you could use > > that to divide the file into multiple spool files. > ---- > random was OK - I'll not elaborate but the cost is one of 11,210 emails. > Seems a fair price to pay. > > Thanks for the fish - I was too panicked to research. My mind went to dd > but I didn't know skip option. > > FTR... > > dd if=big.mailbox of=new.file bs=1048576 count=1000 > OK > > dd if=big.mailbox of=other.part bs=1048576 seek=1000 > Not OK (gave me 2.9G file) > > but > dd if=big.mailbox of=other.part bs=1048576 skip=1000 > > was the winner - thanks all (actually my number was 1073737, which was > 1/2 rounded upwards) ---- one more issue I guess and this is probably simple... The second file has a bunch of binary stuff at the top. The file is still too large to edit with emacs and I just tried to open it with vi which appears to be larger than it can stomach - it's hanging there trying to open it for editing... ;-) Is there a command that I can just cut from the start of the file until the first ^From ? Craig --------------------------------------------------- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change you mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss