Re: [RFC] Exim as standard Debian MTA?
Hi,
>>"Steve" == Steve Lamb <morpheus@calweb.com> writes:
Steve> On 28 Aug 1998 21:38:35 -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
>> It is not a hacked up version of regex. It does not nneed to
>> be, a general purpose regex engine shall serve really poorly for
>> rewrite rules. It is a specialized matching language, whose tokenizer
>> is optimized for the requirements of SMTP address rewites.
Steve> Let's just say I don't agree at all. I know that I can and
Steve> would do a much better job with, say, pcre than I would with
Steve> Sendmail's implimentation. Funny that I pick that, isn't it?
Steve> ;)
Sure, any turing complete language shall work quite well. But,
like perl or pcre, they are overkill. You do not need the full power
of something like (recognizing "only US$15,- p min")
______________________________________________________________________
# Be very generous about accepting "only US$15,- p min" text.
/\b(?:to|just|only)\s+(?:[a-z]{2}\s*)?(?:(?:\$|\#)\s*)?(?:\d+[o\d]*(?:[.,](?:\
[o\d]{2}|-)?)?|\.[o\d]+)(?:\s*cents)?\s*(?:\/|p(?:er|\.)?)\s*(?:m(?:in(?:ute)\
?)?|h(?:ou)?r?|da?y?|w(?:ee)k?|mo?n(?:th)?|y(?:ea)?r?)/i
______________________________________________________________________
Or even
______________________________________________________________________
/\b(?:to|just|only) # first they try to de-emphasize it
\s+(?:[a-z]{2}\s*)? # Sometimes with something for the currency
(?:(?:\$|\#)\s*)? # Sometimes a currency notation (needs expanding)
(?:\d+[o\d]* # A number
(?:[.,](?:[o\d]{2} # with an optional fractional portion
|-)?)? # or a hyphen for 00
|\.[o\d]+) # or exclusively fractional
(?:\s*cents)? # an alternative currency location
\s*(?:\/|p(?:er|\.)?) # "per" and variations
\s*(?:m(?:in(?:ute)?)?# "minute" and variations
|h(?:ou)?r? # or "hour" '' ''
|da?y? # or "day" '' ''
|w(?:ee)k? # or "week" '' ''
|mo?n(?:th)? # or "month" '' ''
|y(?:ea)?r?) # or "year" '' ''
/ix # Ignore case and use free-format regexp
______________________________________________________________________
In order to do sendmail rewrites.
>> which you seem to have missed the point of. Configuration files are
>> read by programs. Configuration files need be written by
>> humans. Seems like something that takes the input in a format
>> readable by humans, and converts it into a fromat readable by
>> machines is a good thing.
Steve> Except that isn't what is done with the m4 scripts, is it? It
Steve> cuts and pastes other configuration files together to give a
Steve> good base, but anything specific still has to be done with
Steve> that hacked together language.
Point. Though I still think that calling sendmails language
hacked is just as valid as calling Perl a hacked up language (even
Larry concedes trhat point).
Steve> If an O is followed by a space it is presumed that what
Steve> follows is a long form configuration statement.
Steve> OQ
Steve> O QueueDirectory
Steve> To me that seems like a hack since one could just scan for section
Steve> headers and keywords instead of hacking it into that ancient thing.
One mans hack is another mans backwards compatibility.
I kinda like the fact that sendmail.cf has remained largely
unchanged ;-).
manoj
--
Yes, but which self do you want to be?
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@acm.org> <http://www.datasync.com/%7Esrivasta/>
Key C7261095 fingerprint = CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05 CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E
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