Shoutbox

[NOTE: This post is regarding a relatively technical issue...]

Ok, so there I was looking at the different xml chat logs from my various machines all for and wishing there was something that could put them together while maintaining dates and resorting the merged conversations by date into a new xml file. So google was no help and then I figured "Hey, I can program stuff, why don't I do that..." and so I went about looking at the source of the xml log files heres an example (humaninsed from the raw xml animal it once was):

quote:

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<Log FirstSessionID="1" LastSessionID="2">
  <Message Date="2005.08.08" Time="9.08.55 pm" DateTime="2005-08-09T01:08:55.015Z" SessionID="1">
    <From>
      <User FriendlyName="GOB"/>
    </From>
    <To>
      <User FriendlyName="Chareth Cutestory"/>
    </To>
    <Text Style="font-family:Georgia; color:#800080; ">I've made a huge mistake...</Text>
  </Message>
  <Message Date="2005.08.08" Time="9.09.04 pm" DateTime="2005-08-09T01:09:04.312Z" SessionID="1">
    <From>
      <User FriendlyName="Chareth Cutestory"/>
    </From>
    <To>
      <User FriendlyName="GOB"/>
    </To>
     <Text Style="font-family:MS Shell Dlg; color:#000000; ">Well that's bound to happen...</Text>
  </Message>
</Log>

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Now ignoring that fact that that was a shameless plug of arrested development, it also reveals a very important fact about Microsoft's chat log: they don't save the passport id (ie Chareth@hotmail.com) anywhere in the file. In fact, they pretty much store just enough to display it via xsl without worrying about useful metadata they could have stored for future use. Not to mention the fact that they're storing the alternate colours inside the document itself...

So it's really hard to join together these logs if there's no common identifier to connect the different friendly names (and my firendly name changes more often than... something that changes a lot), so what I'm here to ask is: is there any word on the internal format of the new spiffy xhtml logs in MsgPlus! 4? they looked very cool and I was wondering if that sort of data was going to be in the source of the file. Also if it's not finalised and passport id is not in there could it be?

PS I know that I can do what I want with the current system, but I don't want to support a poorly designed microformat (even privately in a never to be released cruddy commandline program) if there's a better designed alternative in the wings...

quote:

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Originally posted by offput
Also if it's not finalised and passport id is not in there could it be?

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Well I don't know for definate and Patchou is probably the only one who can answer this, but I'd say its very ikely that the email address's will be stored in the logs, it's surprising that microsofts logs.

hey i wnt to get rid of chat logsss how do i delete them is there a way to delete them! Plzzz help!

Most appreciated.

For the new Messenger plus! Live/4 the logs there xml,, but what if you want it to be just like the reguler type like on the old plus,, cuz i copy and paste from them quite a bit bit with xml its not going to work as good

quote:

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Originally posted by offput
(...) it also reveals a very important fact about Microsoft's chat log: they don't save the passport id (ie Chareth@hotmail.com) anywhere in the file.

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1) It isn't really needed. The passport is the filename itself. Messenger logs are saved as "passport.XML"

2) In fact, they are stored inside the XML nevertheless. eg:
<User LogonName="blahblah@yaddayadda.com" FriendlyName="djingledjangle"/>

quote:

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Originally posted by xkurix
hey i wnt to get rid of chat logsss how do i delete them is there a way to delete them! Plzzz help!

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Simply delete them like you delete any file...

Do not post off topic stuff in threads. If you have questions about a certain specific topic, create your own thread (after searching the forums to look for already existing threads about that subject)

Also do not cross post the same question in more threads.

quote:

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Originally posted by tx2010
For the new Messenger plus! Live/4 the logs there xml,, but what if you want it to be just like the reguler type like on the old plus,, cuz i copy and paste from them quite a bit bit with xml its not going to work as good

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As you can read in various threads, the new XML logging for Messenger Plus! Live will not break any functionality you had with previous versions.

Furthermore, because they are going to be saved as XML's, you can fully customize it to whatever you want (just as you can now with Messenger's own XML logs)

That's weird, my log files don't have the LogonName attribute...

also their filenames aren't the full passport...

for example, if their passport id was JohnnyBoy@hotmail.com the filename is usually JohnnyBoy[some random numbers].xml

maybe my system is messed up a bit. oh well, not a big deal I can always just manually copy and paste the logs if it comes to it...

hmmm... now that you mention it, I did some quick checking on newer versions and indeed the XML logs from Messenger are changed since the new versions of Messenger.

Now they indeed are named as xxxxyyyy.xml where xxxx is the first part before the @ symbol, and yyyy is the .NET passport ID (not a random number, but a calculated hash based upon the complete .NET Passport, see here)

And in even newer versions there is indeed no mention anymore of the LogonName attribute inside the user tag either.

(so you aren't going crazy, nor is your logging system messed up; I didn't checked it out to carefully before replying)

well that's good

thanks for the helpful responses. cheers.