The following message is a courtesy copy of an article
that has been posted as well.
Archive-name-to-be: mail/procmail-faq-pointer
URL: http://www.iki.fi/~era/procmail/
Last-modified: Mon Aug 18 13:28:27 1997 +0300 (EET DST)
Posting-frequency: I was thinking, every 17 days or so
Clarification: (17 is the most random number)
Obfuscation: (Call it that instead if you will)
The Procmail Mini-FAQ and its companion Procmail Links page are
available at the following locations:
Procmail Mini-FAQ: <http://www.iki.fi/~era/procmail/mini-faq.html>
Procmail Links: <http://www.iki.fi/~era/procmail/links.html>
This informational message is being sent out as a very informal test.
Please let me know what you think about this.
My current plan is to send this out every 17 days and see how people
react. If nobody reacts in any way, I will probably continue to send
it out this way, and/or ultimately seek news.answers approval for this
notice.
(I might not send it exactly 17 days from now -- sending is done by
hand after minor editing but I'm working on automating it. Still.)
I am living under the impression that the vast majority of Usenet is
not particularly fond of fetching FAQs from the news spool now that
there is a viable alternative. If you do not agree, and would rather
see that I post the entire FAQ instead of just this notice, please let
me know. I will probably attempt to have the FAQ proper archived at
rtfm.mit.edu once I iron out the final glitches in the text-only
rendering.
If you would like to receive the FAQ by electronic mail, send a
message with the Subject: header "send mini-faq.txt" to the address
<era+pr(_at_)iki(_dot_)fi>
The Links page is not very useful if you do not have WWW access.
There is thus presently no mechanism in place for fetching that by
electronic mail.
/* era */
I include a short Contents section as well as a list of changes since
last time I announced the FAQ.
Abridged table of contents of the FAQ:
* What is Procmail? -- Description, availability, and installation
+ Among other things, a pointer to a local copy of Stephen's
original FAQ
* How do I use wildcards in Procmail? Explain file locking, please.
... and other syntax issues, including:
+ What does the second colon in :0: mean?
+ What does "Couldn't determine implicit lockfile" mean?
+ Short example recipes sprinkled throughout the text
* Help, I get this error message ... -- Troubleshooting tips
Some highlights:
+ An example debugging .rc file
+ Known bugs, common gotchas, and funny quirks
... including, but not limited to:
o The regexp engine is not egrep compatible
o There is no ^FROM macro
o Backslash parsing is sometimes counter-intuitive
o Always include a SHELL= definition
+ Efficiency tips
+ Getting the thing to run in the first place
+ What goes in your .forward file
+ Why does formail fail when looking for duplicates?
+ What's this about "rescued" data from a filtering recipe?
+ Why won't biff work for my own folders?
* How do I ...? -- Running Procmail
+ ... match on the BCC header?
+ ... run Procmail on a file of messages?
+ ... trim down the From: field to just user(_at_)host?
+ ... know what EXITCODE to use?
+ ... extract MIME parts from messages?
+ ... implement a virtual domain?
+ ... write a "vacation" program? An autoresponder?
* Where can I learn more? -- A small links collection
The following change log details recent developments since this
announcement was last posted. The WWW version has a full change log
which goes further back.
Mini-FAQ:
date: 1997/08/18
How formail -rtzxTo: is not required for many things (thanks to
Philip Guenther, again, again)
date: 1997/08/17
biff/comsat question (thanks to Phil, once again)
date: 1997/08/12
Clarification about egrep [in]compatibility
date: 1997/08/09
formail argument passing order is a "gotcha" (mentioned by
David Tamkin on the list)
date: 1997/08/06
FROM "macro" was slightly broken and would wrap in the
text-only rendering. Clarified and rehashed some passages
slightly (notably a new paragraph on random exit codes) and
fixed a couple of botches in the markup. More Sendmailisms
should probably be pointed out.
date: 1997/08/04
More <base> bugs, thanks to Michael Stone for troubleshooting
... perhaps I should just give up and take out the base tag?
date: 1997/07/29
Line-continuation backslash comments tuned as per Rik Kabel's
suggestion (thanks)
Links:
date: 1997/08/18
Achim Bohnet is back on line and archiving -- took out note
about pause since April
date: 1997/08/05
Mike Rose is rich and famous (thanks to Simeon Nevel for the
pointer)
date: 1997/07/30
Link to David Tamkin's pager forwarding recipe on Rosat
a name=tags for utilities for easy reference; included pointer
to good old mdate in the Rosat archive
More links to list archives; Adam Shostack's PGP scriptlet
date: 1997/07/29
Broke the spam-fighting tools and spam filters in the
Applications section into their own subsection. Added
junkfilter to this section and rearranged it somewhat. Added
pointer to Eli's proc-util package under utilities and JD
Falk's Cybernothing filters under net-abuse/tangential.
--
Defin-i-t-e-ly. Sep-a-r-a-te. Gram-m-a-r. <http://www.iki.fi/~era/>
* Enjoy receiving spam? Register at <http://www.iki.fi/~era/spam.html>