mail messages with only html

[Richard Lyons <richard@the-place.net>]

This is becoming more of a problem.  There is a growing number of firms
that are incapable of sending out normal emails.  They insist on sending
blank messages with an html attachment only.  Of course this is usually
a sign of spam, and I usually delete such messages without wasting time
wondering what might be in them.  But I do get some messages in this 
form that I want to read, and even keep.  

Here is the thought that struck me: could I in principle write a script
to take such void plus html messages, strip the tags (replacing URLs
when the href text doesn't have it) and write the bare text back into
the source email so that I can see it? The html attachment could be left
in place or discarded, it usually won't matter which.  Or would this
mess up the IMAP or Maildir indexing in some way?  

Obviously there are plenty of examples of html-strippers around, but
generally the output lands up somewhere else, and it would be a great
help if the missing original message could be inserted so as to be
viewable while browsing the email folder hierarchy.

-- 
richard