R SIG Debian - Jun 2009 - Adjusting Mime types for files with extensions .R or .Rout

I'm not sure if this is a Debian/Ubuntu question related to R or a
Gmail question related to R so I thought I would start with this
mailing list.

I often wish to email R scripts and the result of a R CMD BATCH run of
the script.  I wish them to be enclosures of mime type text/plain so
they are easier to handle and so they can be included in the archives
of mailing lists.  I use the web interface to Gmail for composing mail
but would be willing to use another client like Thunderbird with a POP
or IMAP connection to my Gmail account if that would be easier to
configure.  Most computers I use run Ubuntu and a
Debian/Ubuntu-specific method would be sufficient for my needs.

Do I need to configure the mime.types file or is it better to
configure the mail client application?

On Fri, 12 Jun 2009 11:25:10 -0500,
Douglas Bates <bates at stat.wisc.edu> wrote:
> I'm not sure if this is a Debian/Ubuntu question related to R or a
> Gmail question related to R so I thought I would start with this
> mailing list.
> I often wish to email R scripts and the result of a R CMD BATCH run of
> the script.  I wish them to be enclosures of mime type text/plain so
> they are easier to handle and so they can be included in the archives
> of mailing lists.  I use the web interface to Gmail for composing mail
> but would be willing to use another client like Thunderbird with a POP
> or IMAP connection to my Gmail account if that would be easier to
> configure.  Most computers I use run Ubuntu and a
> Debian/Ubuntu-specific method would be sufficient for my needs.
> Do I need to configure the mime.types file or is it better to
> configure the mail client application?
This works for me (in Gnus under Emacs):

type=text/plain		exts="r"
type=text/plain		exts="rout"

The mail client app might have a template for easy editing with more
options, but I'm not familiar with Thunderbird.  I've been using
Fetchmail for a long time to collect mail from a few sources (Gmail and
a couple of IMAP servers), which is then handled by the system's MTA
(exim4 in Debian) and put together in /var/mail/myuser.  Your MUA
(e.g. Thunderbird, or whatever) can easily get messages from there.
This requires setting up a ~/.fetchmailrc.  My entry for Gmail is:

---<--------------------cut
here---------------start------------------->---
set daemon 600				   # check mail every 10 min
set logfile "/home/myuser/.fetchmail.log"  # log results here

poll pop.gmail.com
protocol pop3
username "user at gmail.com"
password "secret"
is myuser
ssl				# Gmail requires ssl protocol
fetchall
---<--------------------cut
here---------------end--------------------->---


-- 
Seb