PMDF popstore & MessageStore Manager's Guide


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7.15 Information Display Formats

Formatting files control the choice and format of information presented with the SHOW and GROUP commands. These files are located in the pmdf_root:[www.popstore] directory. To display different choices of information or to change the formatting of the information, do not edit the Process Software supplied formatting files --- your changes will be lost when you next upgrade PMDF. Instead, create new formatting files and use them instead. Once you have created a new formatting file, you can configure the utility to always use it, as described in Section 7.15.1. Or, you can use it occasionally to generate a monthly report. Such occasional usage is effected with the /FORMAT switch as described in Section 7.15.2.

7.15.1 Changing Default Display Formats

You can change this utility's default display formats through the use of an option file. The file is a PMDF-style option file named PMDF_TABLE:popstore_formats.; . Each option setting in the file takes the form


option-name=option-value 
where option-name is the name of an option to set and option-value is the value to set for that option. The recognized option names and their default values are shown below
Option name Default value Used with
FORWARD_FORMAT popmgr_forward.txt SHOW/FORWARDINGS
GROUP_FORMAT popmgr_groups.txt GROUP/LIST
MSG_FORMAT popmgr_message.txt SHOW/MESSAGES
MSG_BRIEF_FORMAT popmgr_message_brief.txt SHOW/MESSAGES/BRIEF
PROFILE_FORMAT popmgr_profile.txt SHOW
PROFILE_BRIEF_FORMAT popmgr_profile_brief.txt SHOW/BRIEF

As an example, suppose you want to change the show command's output. You could then copy the popmgr_profile.txt file to, say, site_profile.txt and then edit the new file. 4 Then, create the PMDF_TABLE:popstore_formats.; file and in it place the line


PROFILE_FORMAT=site_profile.txt 
Make sure that these file are world readable and owned by the PMDF account. Once you have done this, the SHOW command output will by default use your new formatting file. Note that if you make this change while running the utility, you will need to exit it and restart it in order for the change to be seen.

7.15.2 Report Generation

Customized reports can be generated using the /FORMAT_FILE qualifier of the SHOW command. With that qualifier, a formatting file can be specified. The file will then be used to format the information to be displayed. The syntax of formatting files is described in Section 4.3.4. For example, suppose that the file PMDF_ROOT:[WWW.POPSTORE]usage.txt contains the lines


%first{                                             Quota} 
%first{                                   Owner      Used} 
%first{--------------------------------------------------} 
%owner{%40s}  %quota_used_k{%8.2f} 
%last{--------------------------------------------------} 
That file could then be used as follows:


$ PMDF POPSTORE SHOW/FORMAT_FILE=USAGE.TXT
                                             Quota 
                                   Owner      Used 
-------------------------------------------------- 
                             Russ Barnes     24.02 
                            Orla Sheehan      8.56 
                            Deanne Fagan     36.72 
                    Default user profile      0.00 
                             Marty Rolfe    133.98 
                             Karen Russo     73.22 
-------------------------------------------------- 
 
$ 

Note that for security reasons, the formatting files must be kept in the directory PMDF_ROOT:[WWW.POPSTORE] . This is enforced so as to prevent users with popstore management privileges from using the /FORMAT_FILE qualifier as a means of displaying protected files from other directories.

See Chapter 9 for further discussion of generating reports.

Note

4 Recall that these files are stored in the pmdf_root:[www.popstore] directory.

7.16 Recreating the Default Account

Should you accidentally delete the default account, you can recreate it using the x-add-default command:


popstore> x-add-default
You can then set settings for the default account using the modify command:


popstore> MODIFY DEFAULT/QUOTA=1000/OVERDRAFT=15

7.17 Recreating the User Database

Should the user database become corrupted or be accidentally deleted, you can recreate it using the x-build-user-db command:


popstore> x-build-user-db
This utility will create a new user database and populate it with entries found by scanning the profile directory tree.


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