TL> Thanks.....now I have to cobble up a way to add that function to
 TL> the "Batch file from Hell".

 TL> Folks will need to actually edit their rules files to change the
 TL> date, as far as I can tell, the robot maintains the original date
 TL> of the file, NOT the date it was submitted.

ml> how does that work when the files are included in the body of the
ml> message? it would seem that something has to create the file on the
ml> robot's end ;) 

 RW> Yep, and, the created file takes the name that the moderator
 RW> specifies I note. 

it is supposed to but that was one of my problems/complaints in the past
but evidently it was never understood as such... i was told to do a MOD UPD
and leave out the rules filename so that it would maybe be removed from the
echo's entry but that didn't work... and i couldn't change the name of the
rules file because every time i sent in a new rules file update, the bot's
processing used the echo tag for the rules file's name and that wouldn't
work because of the 8.3 limitation and that it completely ignored the
filename i had assigned it in the MOD UPD to start with...

i finally gave up because every time i tried to say anything, it was
perceived as an attack... hell, i'd never even have gone to email updates
if i hadn't basically been forced to use them... previously i was using
direct netmail via POTS with the command option to retain my update replies
until i polled and picked them up... ok, so i drop off a new set of updates
and pick up the notices from the last one... since i do that on day X of
every month, then i'd have mail sitting there waiting for me for about 30
days... no big deal... or so i thought :rolleyes: heck, i've still got mail
sitting here that's been here waiting for pickup for over a year... no big
deal... geez... whatever...

 RW> WEre I doing it here, I'd create my batch by keeping same
 RW> day of month, but add 6 to month number, or appropriate
 RW> number of days by julian date.  But then, you've got year
 RW> rollover to consider.  

 RW> SOunds like fun .

yeah, not! the easiest and best thing is to include the echo rules in the
message body of the rule update... that way the bot will create the new
file with the proper file date... if you stop sending the rule updates, the
last one the bot created with get older and older until it is purged... no
problem... just don't try to use three or more dashes anywhere in your
update or the silly bot will read them as the end of the message and not
process anything after... i tried to explain this before but some how it
seems to be lost that dashes in the middle of a line are not tearline
dashes and a line of dashes that is longer than three dashes is not a
tearline... hell, email and news atricles use two dashes whereas all FTN
networks use three dashes and ALL of them specifically state in their specs
that they must start at the beginning of the line... not one space over and
certainly not an 75 character string of them that starts more than one
space over...

so anyway, frakit... i gave up because i'm obviously too stupid to own a
computer much less try to talk to someone and explain the problem in the
process or even what the specs plainly state... oh well... time will
tell... 

)\/(ark