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The Miyazaki Mailing List

How to access the LISTSERV Archives

Contents

Getting started

This page will teach you how to download files from the mailing list's archive on the mailing list's server. There are two ways to do so, and they're both presented here.

Before we begin, a brief glossary:

mailing list archive
A place where messages from a mailing list are stored. Usually, messages are stored in groups by week, month, or year. To save space, either a limited number are stored, or they are compressed using archival software to reduce the amount of space they take up on disk.
LISTSERV
This is the software used by the Miyazaki Mailing List to manage subscriptions, mail delivery, and mail archiving. It is sold by L-Soft.com.
BrownVM
This is the machine which hosts the Miyazaki Mailing List. The full name of this machine is listserv.brown.edu.
listserv@listserv.brown.edu
The e-mail address of the list server which manages the Miyazaki Mailing List. E-mailed commands to the list server should be directed to that e-mail address.
FTP
File Transfer Protocol or File Transfer Program. There are many computer programs which let you transfer files between computers (attaching them to e-mail messages is not the only way to do so). Usually, the letters "FTP" are somewhere in the name of such computer programs (e.g. WS_FTP, AbsoluteFTP, CuteFTP, etc.), but not always (e.g. Fetch).
CD
In this context, "CD" is the "change directory" command for FTP. Files on computers are grouped into directories, and the "CD" command lets you choose which directory to look at.
DIR
In this context, "DIR" is the "directory listing" command for FTP. It will retrieve a listing of the files available on the file server in the directory you've chosen with the "CD" command. Files are usually listed by name, type, size, and the date they were created or most recently modified. LISTSERV
ASCII
In this context, "ASCII" is the command which tells the FTP program to transfer data as if it was text instead of binary data usually found in picture files, sound files, movie files, or programs. This affects all future "GET" commands (see below).
GET
In this context, "GET" is the download commmand for FTP. To transfer a file from another computer to your computer, the "GET" command has to be told by name which file you want to receive.

How do I connect to the mail archive?

I will be explaining in parallel how to use FTP and E-mail to download files from the message archive, for your convenience.

FTP instructions E-mail instructions
The FTP instructions are not applicable for the time being. The admin of our list server hasn't restored anonymous FTP access yet.
  • Start your e-mail program.
  • Begin a new e-mail message.
  • Address the message to listserv@listserv.brown.edu.
  • Skip over the Subject line, as that is not important.
  • In the body of the message, type:
    thanks
  • Send the message and wait for the response from LISTSERV.
  • If you receive a message from listserv@listserv.brown.edu with the text "You're welcome!", then your command was received and processed correctly.

How do I know what's available in the archive?

FTP instructions E-mail instructions
The FTP instructions are not applicable for the time being. The admin of our list server hasn't restored anonymous FTP access yet.
  • Start your e-mail program.
  • Begin a new e-mail message.
  • Address the message to listserv@listserv.brown.edu.
  • Skip over the Subject line, as that is not important.
  • In the body of the message, type:
    index nausicaa
  • Send the message and wait for the response from LISTSERV.
  • If you receive a message from listserv@listserv.brown.edu with the subject File: "NAUSICAA FILELIST" and a file listing beginning with the text "* NAUSICAA FILELIST for LISTSERV@BROWNVM", then your command was received and processed correctly.

How do I interpret the filenames?

FTP instructions
The FTP instructions are not applicable for the time being. The admin of our list server hasn't restored anonymous FTP access yet.
E-mail instructions
Assuming you've just received the result of the "index nausicaa" command:
  • Scroll down the message until you find the section labeled "* NOTEBOOK archives for the list".
  • Let's examine one line of this. I've labeled each column for the sake of illustration:
    1------- 2--------- 3-- 4-- 5---- 6--- 7--- 8------- 9------- 10-------------------------------------
    NAUSICAA LOG9901A   ALL OWN V     315  3317 99/01/06 23:34:56 Started on Fri, 1 Jan 1999 01:56:28 EST
    
    filename filetype GET PUT -fm lrecl nrecs date time Remarks
  • Column 1: file name
  • Column 2: file type
  • Column 3: who is allowed to download the file
  • Column 4: who is allowed to modify the file
  • Column 5: record format (V = variable, F = fixed)
  • Column 6: length of longest line of text
  • Column 7: number of lines
  • Column 8: last modified date
  • Column 9: last modified time
  • Column 10: remarks
  • The columns you need to concern yourself with the most are columns 1 and 2, which combine to give you the full file name, and column 8, which tells you how recent the file is.
  • Note in column 2, the the file types follows a pattern: in "LOG9901A" for example,
    • "LOG" identifies the file as part of the message archive
    • "99" identifies the year (1999)
    • "01" identifies the month (January)
    • "A" identifies the week ("A" = first week of the month..."E" = last week of the month)
  • For example, if you were looking for archives of the 3rd week of May, 1999, the file you should be looking for would be named "NAUSICAA LOG9905C".

How do I download a file from the archive?

FTP instructions E-mail instructions
The FTP instructions are not applicable for the time being. The admin of our list server hasn't restored anonymous FTP access yet. Assume for the sake of example that the archive you want is named "NAUSICAA LOG9905C".
  • Start your e-mail program.
  • Begin a new e-mail message.
  • Address the message to listserv@listserv.brown.edu.
  • Skip over the Subject line, as that is not important.
  • In the body of the message, type:
    get nausicaa log9905c
  • Send the message and wait for the response from LISTSERV.
  • If you receive a message from listserv@listserv.brown.edu with a subject of "File: "NAUSICAA LOG9905C", then your command was received and processed correctly.

How do I read the file I've just downloaded?

FTP and E-mail instructions
Assume for the sake of example that the archive you want has been downloaded to your machine, or e-mailed to you from the list server, with the name "NAUSICAA.LOG9905C".
  • If you received the LOG file via e-mail, you can probably use your e-mail software to store the message as a text file on disk. Check your e-mail software's documentation for instructions on how to do this.
  • You can open the file with your favorite text editor or word processor at this point. All of the messages are concatenated together, one after another, in the order that they were received by LISTSERV.
  • Each message begins with a horizontal line made up of 72 equal signs "=". This serves to separate each message from the next, but this also means unless your e-mail program understands LISTSERV archives, it won't be possible to simply feed the mail archive file into your e-mail program to let it pretend it is one of your e-mail folders
  • After the horizontal line, each message then has a header which describes when each message was sent, what the mailing list's address is, who the message was from, and what the subject of the message was.
  • Between the header and the next line of equal signs is the body of the message.

How do I search the file I've just downloaded?

FTP and E-mail instructions
  • If your text editor has a search feature, you can quickly find the text you're looking for that might appear anywhere in the headers or bodies of the messages in the archive you just downloaded.
  • The particulars of how your text editor searches will determine how easily you can find the messages you are looking for. Please consult your text editor's or word processor's documentation for help with searching for text.

What if I don't find what I'm looking for?

FTP and E-mail instructions
  • If you don't find the message(s) you're looking for in the file from the message archive that you just downloaded, then try another guess about when the message might have been posted to the list, determine what the name of the likely archive would be, and then try downloading that one.
  • If you downloaded or received the most recent mail archive and didn't find the message you were looking for, then try again with the previous week's archive. If that doesn't help, use the web archive search tool written by FUKUMOTO Atsushi.

Using LISTSERV's advanced search features

There is actually a search utility on LISTSERV to help you search for messages in the archive, but it is more difficult to use. For more information about the search utility, send the text "info database" to the address listserv@listserv.brown.edu. You will receive a message from LISTSERV with the subject File: "LISTDB MEMO". Alternately, you can find the LISTSERV documentation about the SEARCH command online. Read it carefully.

Quick start of advanced search

Use this message template to search for messages:

SEARCH something IN NAUSICAA date_expression

Where:
SEARCH
This word is required, although it doesn't have to be in ALL CAPS.
something
This can be the word or words you are searching for. It can be as simple as "reel.com" or as complex as a Boolean expression like "Kondo AND (NOT Yoshifumi)". The quotation marks are not necessary, and capitalization is ignored when searching.
IN NAUSICAA
These two words are required to identify the mailing list whose archives you are searching. Again, ALL CAPS is not required.
date_expression
This is where you describe which dates you wish to limit the search to. This part is optional. If this part is omitted, then the entire archive on the list server is searched, instead of specific dates. This can be as simple as "TODAY" or as complex as "FROM 14 july TO oct 97" (without the quotation marks, of course).
Note that the list server does not contain all messages since 1991. Instead, the list server only contains the last 12-15 months of messages. We used to be able to store messages further in the past, but that is no longer possible due to:
Strictly speaking, what comes after "IN NAUSICAA" can be used to limit the search in ways other than by restricting the dates. However, that is a topic the LISTSERV documentation is better able to describe.

Read the LISTSERV documentation about the SEARCH command to learn how to search effectively via e-mail. Then send your query to the address listserv@listserv.brown.edu.

Example of advanced search

In response to a number of questions on the list which could have been easily answered by searching the mailing list's archives for the answer, I have prepared here a sample of the database query I used to search for the answer to one of those questions:

Example query

What was the question? "Could someone tell me the URL of the reel.com review of the Princess Mononoke soundtrack?"
SEARCH reel.com IN NAUSICAA SINCE oct 1999
PRINT

Results of example query

> SEARCH reel.com IN NAUSICAA SINCE oct 1999
--> Database NAUSICAA, 5 hits.

Item #   Date   Time  Recs   Subject
------   ----   ----  ----   -------
004137 99/10/09 19:44   27   Some Mononoke Queries from reel.com review
004141 99/10/10 01:52   25   Re: Some Mononoke Queries from reel.com review
004147 99/10/10 12:19   27   Re: Some Mononoke Queries from reel.com review
004155 99/10/10 17:06   62   Re: Some Mononoke Queries from reel.com review
004158 99/10/11 00:07   31   MH US Soundtrack Query

> PRINT
>>> Item number 4137, dated 99/10/09 19:44:37 -- ALL
Date:         Sat, 9 Oct 1999 19:44:37 -0700
Reply-To:     Hayao Miyazaki Discussion Group <NAUSICAA@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU>
Sender:       Hayao Miyazaki Discussion Group <NAUSICAA@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU>
From:         Donander Evre <ninzian@YAHOO.COM>
Subject:      Some Mononoke Queries from reel.com review

I read the reel.com review of Mononoke.
[...]

The result? There was no message which quoted a URL for a reel.com review of the Princess Mononoke soundtrack. What's the next best answer? Ask Donander Evre! Why? Dondander must know how to find the URL of the reel.com review if he read it.

I hope that this helps you.

Michael
Miyazaki ML owner


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