On Mon, 20 Sep 1999, Gerhard Siegesmund <siegesmund@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: [I wrote:] > > If you have procmail installed on your system, you can simply filter > > on the "From " field. > > :0 : > > * ^From (owner-)?gimp-developer[^@]*@[^@]*xcf.berkeley.edu > > gimp-developer > > Why so complicated? Using procmail v3.13.1 I am using the following filter > to get the gimp-mailinglist into its own folder. > > :0: > * ^TOgimp-developer > IN.gimp There are several reasons for that. The rule that I wrote above is my generic mailing list filter. I use it for many mailing lists, and among the conditions that I tried, this is the one that avoids the most false positives and false negatives. I don't use the ^TO condition, because from my point of view it has two disadvantages: first, it will not work if the list is included in a Bcc. This does not happen too often on this list (except for this message :), but it is common practice on some other lists. The other problem is that if someone sends a reply to me with a Cc: to the list, the ^TO condition will store both messages in the same folder. I prefer to get my own copy in a different folder so that I can check if a personal reply is expected. This is useful for high-traffic mailing lists: I can check the personal stuff first to see if there is anything urgent, and then I can read the other messages when I have more time. You may also wonder why I use a complex expression instead of simply checking for the presence of "gimp-developer" in the address. Some mailing lists have a "From " address that is not very unique, and using only the name of the list in the condition could generate false positives. For example, if the name of this list was simply "gimp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx", then filtering on the single word "gimp" could also match unrelated e-mail addresses that contain that word. This is unlikely to be a problem with "gimp-developer", but it can be a problem with other lists using shorter names. That's why I prefer to be a bit more specific on the "From " field. But on the other hand, I want to be flexible so that a small change in the host name or the mailing list software would not cause all mails to be misdirected. As you can see above, I allow the optional "owner-" prefix (a common thing for Majordomo lists) and any optional suffix before the "@". Anyway, in most cases your recipe will probably work as well as mine for this list. And it has the advantage that it also works if you are the victim of a broken mail system that strips out the initial "From " field. -Raphael
