guess_delivery_time():

* look for the timestamp of the latest 'Received' header before resorting to
   'Date' or 'Resent-Date'.  
 * let 'Resent-date' header take precedence over 'Date'. 
Document these changes in manpage and changelog. 
Closes: #1481316, #1764855, Debian bug #272666.

CHANGELOG

@@ -3,6 +3,12 @@ Version 0.7.3   - UNRELEASED
  * Fixed date header parsing to be precise with timezone information.  Also,
    when writing From_ line timestamps, don't use UTC but local time, without
    timezone information.
+ * To determine the delivery date of a message, archivemail now looks for the
+   timestamp of the latest 'Received' header before resorting to 'Date' or
+   'Resent-Date'.  This should give much better results when there is no
+   'Delivery-date' header.  (Thanks Andrew Ferrier & Christian Brabandt)
+   Closes: #1481316, #1764855, Debian bug #272666.
+ * If present, the 'Resent-date' header now takes precedence over 'Date'. 
 
 Version 0.7.2   - 9 November 2007
 

archivemail.1

@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@
 .\" <http://shell.ipoline.com/~elmert/comp/docbook2X/> 
 .\" Please send any bug reports, improvements, comments, patches, 
 .\" etc. to Steve Cheng <steve@ggi-project.org>.
-.TH "ARCHIVEMAIL" "1" "07 November 2007" "SP" ""
+.TH "ARCHIVEMAIL" "1" "13 November 2007" "SP" ""
 
 .SH NAME
 archivemail \- archive and compress your old email
@@ -260,8 +260,9 @@ links or create tempfiles or archives in world-writable directories.
 \fBarchivemail\fR attempts to find the delivery date of a message by
 looking for valid dates in the following headers, in order of precedence: 
 \fBDelivery-date\fR,
-\fBDate\fR and
-\fBResent-Date\fR\&.
+\fBReceived\fR, 
+\fBResent-Date\fR and
+\fBDate\fR\&.
 If it cannot find any valid date in these headers, it
 will use the last-modified file timestamp on \fBMH\fR and
 \fBMaildir\fR format mailboxes, or the date on the 

archivemail.py

@@ -777,14 +777,20 @@ def guess_delivery_time(message):
     assert(message)
     # try to guess the delivery date from various headers
     # get more desparate as we go through the array
-    for header in ('Delivery-date', 'Date', 'Resent-Date'):
-        try:
-            date = message.getdate_tz(header)
+    for header in 'Delivery-date', 'Received', 'Resent-Date', 'Date':
+        try: 
+            if header == 'Received': 
+                # This should be good enough for almost all headers in the wild; 
+                # if we're guessing wrong, parsedate_tz() will fail graciously. 
+                token = message.getrawheader(header).rsplit(';', 1)[-1]
+            else: 
+                token = message.get(header)
+            date = rfc822.parsedate_tz(token)
             if date:
                 time_message = rfc822.mktime_tz(date)
                 vprint("using valid time found from '%s' header" % header)
                 return time_message
-        except (IndexError, ValueError, OverflowError): pass
+        except (AttributeError, IndexError, ValueError, OverflowError): pass
     # as a second-last resort, try the date from the 'From_' line (ugly)
     # this will only work from a mbox-format mailbox
     if (message.unixfrom):

archivemail.sgml

@@ -35,7 +35,7 @@
 
 <RefEntry>
 
-<DocInfo><Date>7 November 2007</Date></DocInfo>
+<DocInfo><Date>13 November 2007</Date></DocInfo>
 
 <RefMeta>
 <RefEntryTitle>archivemail</RefEntryTitle>
@@ -404,8 +404,9 @@ links or create tempfiles or archives in world-writable directories.
 <Command/archivemail/ attempts to find the delivery date of a message by
 looking for valid dates in the following headers, in order of precedence: 
 <application/Delivery-date/,
-<application/Date/ and
-<application/Resent-Date/.
+<application/Received/, 
+<application/Resent-Date/ and
+<application/Date/.
 If it cannot find any valid date in these headers, it
 will use the last-modified file timestamp on <application/MH/ and
 <application/Maildir/ format mailboxes, or the date on the