msgconvert ignores subdirectory in file path

[dingens]

When calling msgconvert dir/mail.msg, output is written to ./mail.eml, instead of the expected dir/mail.msg. (Same with absolute paths: msgconvert /some/where/mail.msg also creates mail.eml in the current working directory.)

The behavior of overriding existing files (which is documented) in combination with this (not documented) can result in data loss even when people are aware of the "normal" overriding, because one would not reasonably expect that files in the current working directory might be overridden as well.

Bug observed in 0.921, but I could not find a matching commit since, so I strongly assume it is still present.

[sandbro]

@dingens try this (generated by GPT...)

#!/bin/bash

# Define a recursive function to process directories
process_directory() {
  local dir="$1"  # Local variable to store the directory path
  pushd "$dir" > /dev/null  # Change directory and suppress output

  # Find and convert .msg files in the current directory
  if [[ -n $(find . -maxdepth 1 -name "*.msg") ]]; then
    msgconvert *.msg  # Convert .msg files
    echo "Processed directory: $dir" # Display the directory processed
  else
    echo "Directory: $dir has no .msg files" # Display no .msg files were found.
  fi

  # Recursively process subdirectories
  for subdir in */; do
    if [[ -d "$subdir" ]]; then
      process_directory "$subdir" # Recursive call for subdirectories
    fi
  done

  popd > /dev/null # Return to the previous directory and suppress output
}

# Start processing from the current directory
process_directory "." # Start the recursive process

echo "Processing complete." # Display completion message

[mvz]

@sandbro please don't post untested GPT output.

[sandbro]

Hi @mvz, I tried this Bash command on my computer, and it works.
The script recursively searches for .msg files in the current directory and all its subdirectories, using the msgconvert command to process them. After processing, it outputs the status of each directory and a final completion message.

[dingens]

@sandbro I appreciate your intention to help, however I think that this is a bug in msgconvert that should be fixed (or, at least, it's unexpected behavior that should be documented). Your script does not solve this.

If however somebody urgently needs a workaround, they could just use find's -execdir option, no need for such a huge script:

find -type f -name "*.msg" -execdir msgconvert {} +