NAME
          mbox - file containing mail messages

     INTRODUCTION
          The most common format for storage of mail messages is mbox
          format.  An mbox is a single file containing zero or more
          mail messages.

     MESSAGE FORMAT
          A message encoded in mbox format begins with a From_ line,
          continues with a series of non-From_ lines, and ends with a
          blank line.  A From_ line means any line that begins with
          the characters F, r, o, m, space:

               From god@heaven.af.mil Sat Jan  3 01:05:34 1996
               Return-Path: <god@heaven.af.mil>
               Delivered-To: djb@silverton.berkeley.edu
               Date: 3 Jan 1996 01:05:34 -0000
               From: God <god@heaven.af.mil>
               To: djb@silverton.berkeley.edu (D. J. Bernstein)

               How's that mail system project coming along?


          The final line is a completely blank line (no spaces or
          tabs).  Notice that blank lines may also appear elsewhere in
          the message.

          The From_ line always looks like From envsender date
          moreinfo.  envsender is one word, without spaces or tabs; it
          is usually the envelope sender of the message.  date is the
          delivery date of the message.  It always contains exactly 24
          characters in asctime format.  moreinfo is optional; it may
          contain arbitrary information.

          Between the From_ line and the blank line is a message in
          RFC 822 format, as described in qmail-header(5), subject to
          >From quoting as described below.

     HOW A MESSAGE IS DELIVERED
          Here is how a program appends a message to an mbox file.

          It first creates a From_ line given the message's envelope
          sender and the current date.  If the envelope sender is
          empty (i.e., if this is a bounce message), the program uses
          MAILER-DAEMON instead.  If the envelope sender contains
          spaces, tabs, or newlines, the program replaces them with
          hyphens.

          The program then copies the message, applying >From quoting
          to each line.  >From quoting ensures that the resulting
          lines are not From_ lines:  the program prepends a > to any
          From_ line, >From_ line, >>From_ line, >>>From_ line, etc.

          Finally the program appends a blank line to the message.  If
          the last line of the message was a partial line, it writes
          two newlines; otherwise it writes one.

     HOW A MESSAGE IS READ
          A reader scans through an mbox file looking for From_ lines.
          Any From_ line marks the beginning of a message.  The reader
          should not attempt to take advantage of the fact that every
          From_ line (past the beginning of the file) is preceded by a
          blank line.

          Once the reader finds a message, it extracts a (possibly
          corrupted) envelope sender and delivery date out of the
          From_ line.  It then reads until the next From_ line or end
          of file, whichever comes first.  It strips off the final
          blank line and deletes the quoting of >From_ lines and
          >>From_ lines and so on.  The result is an RFC 822 message.

     COMMON MBOX VARIANTS
          There are many variants of mbox format.  The variant
          described above is mboxrd format, popularized by Rahul Dhesi
          in June 1995.

          The original mboxo format quotes only From_ lines, not
          >From_ lines.  As a result it is impossible to tell whether

               From: djb@silverton.berkeley.edu (D. J. Bernstein)
               To: god@heaven.af.mil

               >From now through August I'll be doing beta testing.
               Thanks for your interest.

          was quoted in the original message.  An mboxrd reader will
          always strip off the quoting.

          mboxcl format is like mboxo format, but includes a Content-
          Length field with the number of bytes in the message.
          mboxcl2 format is like mboxcl but has no >From quoting.
          These formats are used by SVR4 mailers.  mboxcl2 cannot be
          read safely by mboxrd readers.

     UNSPECIFIED DETAILS
          There are many locking mechanisms for mbox files.  qmail-
          local always uses flock on systems that have it, otherwise
          lockf.

          The delivery date in a From_ line does not specify a time
          zone.  qmail-local always creates the delivery date in GMT
          so that mbox files can be safely transported from one time
          zone to another.
          If the mtime on a nonempty mbox file is greater than the
          atime, the file has new mail.  If the mtime is smaller than
          the atime, the new mail has been read.  If the atime equals
          the mtime, there is no way to tell whether the file has new
          mail, since qmail-local takes much less than a second to
          run.  One solution is for a mail reader to artificially set
          the atime to the mtime plus 1.  Then the file has new mail
          if and only if the atime is less than or equal to the mtime.

          Some mail readers place Status fields in each message to
          indicate which messages have been read.

     SEE ALSO
          maildir(5), qmail-header(5), qmail-local(8)