On Tue, 10 Jan 1995, Adam Shostack wrote:
Procmail is a very versatile, relatively easy to use way of processing mail.
"Relatively easy" -- Relative to the usual venomous Unix user hostile interface that is. I use procmail, but my local Unix guru does not, even though he has a clear need to do so.
Its most obvious function is to put mailing lists into one or several folders, but it also can be made into a file server*, automatically retrieve PGP keys, act as a basic remailer, etc, etc.
The .procmailrc file is in effect a program, rather than a bunch of flags. Every time procmail receives a message it interpretively executes this program, which does a pattern match on the mail, if it gets a match, passes the mail to some external program, which may be yet another invocation of procmail executing a different .rc file. Now if us windows folk had done it, we would have done it as visual basic controls and we would have created an installation program. Still I must confess, we windows folk have not done it and the unix folk have done it, so I guess it is score 1 for unix, 0 for windows. But I guarantee the chairman of the board is not going to use procmail. --------------------------------------------------------------------- We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because of the kind of animals that we James A. Donald are. True law derives from this right, not from http://nw.com/jamesd/ the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state. jamesd@netcom.com