>Is there a way (even better - an easy way) to import email messages from Netscape 4.7 mail folders (*.snm) to VFoxPro. If there is not an established way to do the import could the email file be read in as a low level file by a routine that could delimit it and load it into tables? Does anyone know of any specifications anywhere for the file format of Netscape's mozilla email?
SNM files are indexes; the actual mail is in the file with the same name but no extension. Just open this file with VFP's code editor and you'll see.
The format is rather straightforward, i.e. simple text. There's a bunch of predefined fields, which can be parsed (the message header), then a line which delimits the message, the message itself, and the other delimiter line which marks the end of message.
I once wrote a routine to get these messages into a table, but:
1) the messages sent in both text and HTML didn't fare too well, I got them both in the message body and the HTML wasn't too readable
2) attachments were MIME encoded; while there are freeware things which can export these into regular files, the one I had was bound by 64K limit.
3) MIME encoded messages are highly unreadable, because many characters you'd think were printable, are still replaced with =xx, where xx is their hex code. This holds for non-western character set messages. The UTF coded messages are equally bad but they seem to have different way of encoding.
Conclusion: it's feasible, using low-level functions. Watch for bumps on the road.