Shoutbox

hi, I recently discovered a whole bunch of old logs created by messenger plus (between 2003 and 2005) all saved in plain text. I have been using Pidgin for a while, and I was wondering if anyone knew a fast way (automated) to  convert these legacy logs to another format.

Looking at the logs, there is quite a bit of information missing, so I'm guessing a script will need to ask questions during conversion:

code:

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.--------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Session Start: 26 February 2004                                    |
| Participants:                                                      |
|    My user name (**********@hotmail.com)                           |
|    Recipient's user name (*******@hotmail.com)                     |
.--------------------------------------------------------------------.
[16:44:33] My user name: Hello there
[16:45:02] Recipient's : hi
[16:45:49] My user name: How are you?
[16:46:37] Recipient's : I'm ok
[16:46:38] Recipient's : yourself?

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So, I'm guessing the script would have to look at that and find the two participants, then ask which user starts with "Recipient's " as the user names get cut off!

I can't find a script or program that does this, and converting the logs by hand takes hours/days/weeks!

Anyone else tried attempting something like this?

Cheers

To my knowledge no one has. There is just too much involved and too much that could potentially go wrong.

quote:

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Originally posted by matty
To my knowledge no one has. There is just too much involved and too much that could potentially go wrong.

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I can't really see what could "go wrong" but I agree that it would be quite difficult to do. If I could program, I'd give it a shot as I know there's enough information in those logs to, at least, be able to convert to a different format.

But in reality what is it that you are trying to achieve? Are you trying to mimic the new HTML logging format in Plus!? Are you trying to make the currently logs more colour rich HTML files?

I'm trying to convert them to HTML, as used in Pidgin, so all my logs are in one place, and in the same format. Which makes them easier to search later on.

Change the file name from .txt to .html, then it's in HTML format 

haha, I wish it was that simple! Pidgin's logs need to be formatted a specific way, or then it won't read them! Also, each conversation needs to be in a separate file.

I don't think you're going to be able to convert them to the exact same format as Pidgin to be able to read them in it properly.  I think you're best off just accepting that it's not gonna happen and leaving the old logs in text format and just being able to get them either via Messenger Plus! Live's chat logger (if you still use it) or by just opening them in notepad

It can be done using various scripts but It's not worth the hassle as said above.

quote:

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Originally posted by Chrissy
It can be done using various scripts but It's not worth the hassle as said above.

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Various scripts? Do you know where I can check these out?

@djdannyp: They don't need to be perfect, but there is actually enough information in them to recreate a readable log. I have done some manually, it just takes a really long time!