procmail
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Re: Waiting

1997-06-23 16:27:00
Timothy J Luoma <luomat(_at_)peak(_dot_)org> writes:

Now that I am getting my mail delivered right to my machine (rather than via  
pop piped to procmail), I'd prefer that procmail not trip over itself.

NeXTStep uses a program called 'appnmail' that does its own locking, but I  
still (being paranoid) want to make sure that it still waits until the  
previous job is done....

all I need to do is add the "W" flag, right?

:0W
* ^Subject: (NeXT_FTP_Report|\
           Fax Received on charisma_fax|\
           Your Mail to Support|\
           comp.sys.next.announce \- ACK|\
            NEXTSTEP/OpenStep Resources on the Net)
|appnmail -vvv Active


No, the 'W' flag would tell procmail that even if appnmail dies a horrible
death, it should act like it succeeded.  Not what you want.

Since if appnmail screws up, your entire mailbox will be hosed, I would
suggest not bothering.  Multiple lockfiles are one of those things you
(almost) never do.  Consider what happens when your mailbox is opened
and thus locked against appnmail (but not a procmail lockfile).
Procmail would do its lock and invoke appnmail which would hang until
your mailbox is unlocked (you didn't give it the "-t timeout" flag).
If another procmail comes along it would see the procmail lock, wait
until it's stale, then remove it and re-lock to then hang in appnmail
as well.  If you used that lockfile to protect something else as well
you would be, well, screwed.  This is part of why multiple lockfiles
are a Bad Thing.  Don't do it.

Philip Guenther

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