There is a two step process to retrieve a past message
from *ANY* listserver. In this example, we will be searching the PCBUILD mailing list for
messages about the Intel CELERON cpu.
You must first search for the message(s) that you want.
Searching for a message on a list server is very much like searching for a web page on
a search engine. You supply a list of keywords or a particular phrase that you want to
look for, and the server then returns a list of messages that match your phrase or
keywords. The major difference is that a listerver can host many different mailing lists,
so you mustt also tell the list server which mailing list you want to search.
Send a message to the listSERVER (not to the list) and in the text of
the message write
SEARCH LISTNAME <>
For our example, the command would look like this:
TO: listserve@maelstrom.stjohns.edu
SUBJECT: [none required]
TEXT SEARCH PCBUILD Celeron
Soon the server will send a message back listing all the posts that contain your search
words/phrase. Notice that in the reply from the listserver, it ignored the capital letter
C in Celeron. Also keep in mind that this list could be very long (sorry, there is no way
to limit it to a special date range).
For our example it would look like this:
> search pcbuild celeron
-> 47 matches.
Item # Date Time Recs Subject
------ ---- ---- ---- -------
001832 98/04/02 0027 39 Re BX Chipset?
001867 98/04/03 1903 44 Re BX Chipset?
001879 98/04/02 1644 47 Re BX Chipset?
002824 98/05/08 1136 37 Re RAM Limitations with Pentium II Processors??
002838 98/05/08 2027 29 Re RAM Limitations with Pentium II Processors??
002860 98/05/08 1557 61 Re RAM Limitations with Pentium II Processors??
002870 98/05/10 1429 40 Re RAM Limitations with Pentium II Processors??
002888 98/05/11 1312 65 Re RAM Limitations with Pentium II Processors??
003218 98/05/28 1754 20 Intel's BX chipset
003219 98/05/28 1727 44 Re Intel's BX chipset
003237 98/05/30 1552 66 Re Intel CPUs
003265 98/06/01 1811 32 Re Cacheable RAM
003626 98/06/21 1305 47 Re Intel vs Cyrix vs AMD
003696 98/06/23 1728 44 Re .
**The rest of the list has been cut off for
brevity **
Directly below the list will be a prebuilt command which you can cut and paste into
the message you will build in step two (below). And then the message will continue on with
an brief excerpt from each of the posts (which will help you narrow down your choices)
similar to the following
>>> Item #2838 (8 May 1998 2027) - Re RAM Limitations with Pentium II
Processors??
>
> All PII's to date, except the new Celeron bogosity, include 512K
^^^^^^^
> of cache, and can cache up to 512MB or 1GB [I can never remember
>>> Item #2860 (8 May 1998 1557) - Re RAM Limitations with Pentium II
Processors??
>
>performance cost? The May issue of PC World was not too keen on this
>new Pentium II, the Celeron. In addition, it appears to be a "dead
^^^^^^^
Now on to step two.
Once you have found the message (or messages) that you want, you must now send another
command to the listserver requesting the messages you want to receive.
The format of the command is:
GETPOST listname item# item# item# ....(as many as you want)
For our example, the message would look like
TO: listserve@maelstrom.stjohns.edu
SUBJECT: [None Required]
TEXT GETPOST PCBUILD 1832 2838 3626 2860
Notice that the item numbers do not have to be in order or consecutive and that all
leading zeroes are removed. You can request as many items as you want with a single
command, but I advise not stringing the numbers so far out that they word-wrap to a second
line. Just create a second command within the same message if you need more items.
