On 1 October 1998, David W. Tamkin <dattier(_at_)Mcs(_dot_)Net> wrote:
[...]
2. Sometimes the action line isn't simply like that, and it also
contains a character from $SHELLMETAS. (No, Dr. Daia, this is not
properly documented as far as I know.)
[...]
Sure, I'll bite. Well, I guess this depends on what you mean by
"proper". Searching for SHELLMETAS through procmailrc man page gives:
: | Starts the specified program, possibly in $SHELL if
: any of the characters $SHELLMETAS are spotted.
[...]
: SHELLMETAS &|<>~;?*[
[...]
: SHELLMETAS If any of the characters in SHELLMETAS appears
: in the line specifying a filter or program,
: the line will be fed to $SHELL instead of
: being executed directly.
[...]
:CAVEATS
: Continued lines in an action line that specifies a program
: always have to end in a backslash, even if the underlying
: shell would not need or want the backslash to indicate
: continuation. This is due to the two pass parsing process
: needed (first procmail, then the shell (or not, depending
: on SHELLMETAS)).
[...]
: The leading `|' on the action line to specify a program or
: filter is stripped before checking for $SHELLMETAS.
AFAICT, this is far better documented than most of the other
features. :-)
Nitpicky as ever,
Liviu
--
Dr. Liviu Daia e-mail: daia(_at_)stoilow(_dot_)imar(_dot_)ro
Institute of Mathematics web page: http://www.imar.ro/~daia
of the Romanian Academy PGP key: finger
daia(_at_)stoilow(_dot_)imar(_dot_)ro