Text 140, 99 rader
Skriven 2006-06-05 13:39:36 av Peter Knapper (3:772/1.10)
    Kommentar till text 139 av Andrew Leary (1:320/119.0)
Ärende: Some questions
======================
Hi Andrew,

 PK>   TSTAMP2       Just outputs a text line with a date/timestamp of the
 PK> event.

 AL> Is this utility on Hobbes?

Both TSTAMPT2 and SLEEP2 are simple utils that I wrote and should be available
via a Fidonet File Echo. If you can't find them then send me your Email address
and I can attach them...

 PK> AUTOMAIL.CMD is the key to the system, its a 5k char, 200 line .CMD
 PK> file that uses SLEEP2 to sleep for a minute before it looks for more
 PK> work (then sleeps again). Automail calls 30+ other CMD files or
 PK> programs. Once started it never ends unless I force it to end or it
 PK> runs into a critical error.

 AL> I'm interested in taking a look at your AUTOMAIL.CMD.  

By itself its probably going to cause you to ask more questions than it
answers, as its so dependant on many other .CMD files and how the real-time BBS
stuff is set up. 

The key to the AUTOMAIL system is the mainline script "AUTOMAIL.CMD". This
manages all the background Mail processing tasks, and ALL tasks run unattended,
unless there is an unrecoverable error and processing halts.

ALL FUNCTIONS that need to be performed by AutoMail are signalled using a
unique SEMAPHORE. The simplest Semaphore is a FLAG file, however you can also
use real OS/2 SEMAPHORE's if you wish.

These SEMAPHORES are created by the Real-time applications, EG if BinkD (or
BinkleyTerm) receives inwards Mail from a connection, then BINKD leaves a
SEMAPHORE that says IMPORT. AUTOMAIL will find that SEMAPHORE and run the
IMPORT process. NONE of the Real-time applications process anything (after
whatever timeout expires) themselves, they all schedule the event via AUTOMAIL.


A BRIEF list of Semaphores used includes -
  MailEnd       Forces Automail to Exit
  Filelist      Runs the Script that generates a new Files Listing.
  ImpMail       STARTS the Script that COLLECTS Email and all
                Internet sourced mail and files (runs as a locked
                parallel task).
  ImpFido       Runs the script that IMPORTS the Internet files into
                the BBS.
  Impnews       Runs the script that IMPORTS Newsgroups into the
                Message base.
  Import        Runs the script that IMPORTS Fidonet mail into the
                Message base.
  Redirect      Runs the script that EXPORTS Fidonet Mail that may
                have arrived via an IMPORT or other external event.
  Exporta       Runs the script that EXPORTS ALL Fidonet traffic.
                There are actually 3 main types of export that can be
                done depending on what is being exported.
  Exportm       EXPORT for Matrix (Netmail) only.
  Exportl       EXPORT for local mail only.
  Exporte       EXPORT for Echomail only.
  Domaint       Runs the script that performs weekly maintenance
                tasks
  Dopack        Runs the script that packs the message base (weekly).

Plus many others that handle things like new node applications,
BBS specific events, etc...

It is important to note that each SEMAPHORE has a companion SEMAPHORE
that causes processing for that Semaphone to be skipped if required. This way I
can disable things if I need to, but leave the rest running.

It is also important to understand that some processes may run for quite some
time and rather than hold things up, AUTOMAIL STARTS the task but leaves
controlling SEMPAHORES that prevent the task from being restarted until it has
completed. EG This was useful for when I used Dial-up Internet.

The AUTOMAIL process is actually fairly basic, however its the DETAIL of each
step that takes the time to set up correctly. 
  1. Run setup code. This includes-
       1. Setting Environment variables used by all BBS related
          processes. ANY process that needs BBS related Environment 
           settings just calls SETBBS.CMD and things are set up.
       2. Setting the default Screen size (I use 80x38 windows),
       3. Setting the SLEEP2 timeout period (I use 60 seconds),
       4. Clean out old (redundant) FLAG files.
       5. Set an INAUTO FLAG to prevent duplicate copies running.
  2. Looks for work.
     Checks each of the possible FLAGS and performs that task. Once
     the task has run AUTOMAIL returns to 2., it does not continue
     through the list simply because there a can be intertask
     dependancies that need to be checked (EG an IMPORT A) means
     there is no point in processing for an IMPORT M.

SLEEP2 has an interesting feature, as well as pausing for nn seconds, it also
monitors the Keyboard for a key press. If A is pressed, it exits with RC = 1, B
gives RC = 2, etc, through to Z gives RC = 26. I check for the SLEEP2 RC after
each sleep and this means I can force any single event at any time if I wish.


--- Maximus/2 3.01
 * Origin: Another Good Point About OS/2 (3:772/1.10)