location of popup helpers question

[Rick Stevens]

Anne Wilson wrote:
> On Monday 28 September 2009 18:05:11 Gene Heskett wrote:
>> AFAIK, kmail updates that kmailrc file everytime it does _anything_, even 
>> clicking on the next message button updates it because it contains the 
>> current message numbers.  The incoming mail function updates it similarly.
>>
>> All this is, to me, is a golden opportunity for any bug anyplace in the
>>  kmail <->filesystem to eventually eat our respective lunches.  Here, it is
>>  a  bit over 131 kilobytes, and to expect a file to get data in the middle
>>  of it overwritten with random lengths of new data, and remain forever
>>  properly formatted and error free seems like tempting fate.
>>
>> It is now 12:58:30 and when I opened this message:
>> [root at coyote config]# ls -l kmailrc
>> -rw------- 1 root root 139265 2009-09-28 12:51 kmailrc
>>
>> Now:
>> [root at coyote config]# ls -l kmailrc
>> -rw------- 1 root root 139265 2009-09-28 12:56 kmailrc
>>
>> So incoming mail updated it, and that means it is a very high traffic
>>  file,  and it has ALL of kmails eggs in it.
>>
>> IMO the data that needs updated frequently like that, really should be
>>  kept  in a separate file.
>>
> Take a copy of your kmailrc, then again after one of your 'changes' and diff 
> them.  Tell us what comes out.
> 
> I don't believe you have actually studied your kmailrc.  It does not contain 
> messages at all.  It contains your folder definitions, which may be what you 
> are mistaking for messages.  It does contain quite a lot of other information, 
> all of it configuration.  Unless you are a very strange user it does not get 
> updated very frequently.  You will notice that in the example you quoted, the 
> file size did not alter at all.  Maybe what you see is a timestamp of when the 
> file was accessed for information?

Uh, doesn't "ls" show the mtime (modify time) by default?  So the file
IS being written to in some manner, even if the size isn't changing.  If
I were to change every occurrence of the digit "4" with "5" in a file
and saved the modified version, the size wouldn't change but the mtime
would.

I think the OP said that it appeared that the current message number was
being updated.  A big message number (5 or 6 digits) would take a while
to require a sixth or seventh digit, thereby changing the file size.

This is all a bit off the point, though.  kmail seems to work fine for
most people (I'm a Thunderbird user myself, but I'm weird).  This may be
a case where a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.
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- Rick Stevens, Systems Engineer                      ricks at nerd.com -
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-         The world is coming to an end ... SAVE YOUR FILES!!!       -
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