procmail
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Re: recipe falls through

2000-10-16 04:11:18
From: guenther+procmail(_at_)gac(_dot_)edu

Dallman Ross <dman(_at_)nomotek(_dot_)com> writes:
From: "David W. Tamkin" <dattier(_at_)ripco(_dot_)com>

Procmail can guess a name for the local lock-
file only when the action is to save to a folder
or a write to command line
that includes ">>".

Or, one would presume, ">" - and other variants such as
">!" and ">>!"   ?

One would presume that if David had meant that, he would have said "an
output file redirection" or some such text.  He didn't, therefore one
would consider checking the manpage to see what it says in the
matter.  Examining the procmailrc(5) manpage one finds:

   Local lockfile
       If  you  put  a  second (trailing) ':' on the first recipe
       line, then procmail will use  a  locallockfile  (for  this 
       recipe  only).   You can optionally specify the locallock-
       file to use; if you don't however, procmail will  use  the
       destination  filename (or the filename following the first
       '>>') and will append $LOCKEXT to it.

Since that mentions neither ">", ">!", nor ">>!", one would conclude,
correctly, that procmail looks for a literal ">>" only.

Color me chastened. <grin>  Thank you for the clarification.
I'd read that several times before, but admit that I hadn't
stared at it closely enough.  I do think I actually remember when
Stephen added locking for ">>" to the code, though, now that
it's being discussed.

(Brainstorm-mode: still wondering about the possible value of adding
lock to other output-file redirectors, though, even as I now see that
the Bourne shell wouldn't need ">>!" anyway.  I know that running
procmail under the Bourne shell (and possibly its superclass variants)
is the best way to stay out of trouble with procmail; but still . . .)

-- 
dman+noacks(_at_)nomotek(_dot_)com avoids a weekly auto-acknowledgment

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