Re: exim: misleading package description?
On Thu, Nov 29, 2001 at 11:42:14AM -0800, Kurt Lieber wrote:
> On Thursday 29 November 2001 11:22 am, Dave Sherohman wrote:
> > That's something I've wondered about for a while... I've found
> > exim's .forward filtering to be more than adequate for anything I've
> > ever wanted to do (and a lot more human-readable to boot), but you
> > seem to be implying that it's less capable than procmail. What can
> > procmail do that exim can't?
>
> I meant "cruel" in the sense that exim's filtering syntax is Shakespeare
> compared to procmail's butchery.
>
> I'm not sure I understand all the differences between exim and procmail
> filtering, but here's my limited understanding:
>
> * exim allows you to filter without changing the envelope sender -- not sure
> if procmail can do this.
> * exim filtering is better at detecting (and preventing) duplicate messages
> among multiple users
> * procmail can pipe messages to other programs and use the return code to do
> futher filtering. Exim can pipe to external programs as well, but can't
> (AFAIK) use the return code in any way.
>
> Basically, exim is set up to deliver messages, so its filtering is designed
> with message delivery as the ultimate goal. Procmail is more of a swiss army
> knife and has a bit more flexibility. The two are certainly not mutually
> exclusive -- one can augment the other.
>
Hope you don't mind the interruption. You may have noticed my slew of
postings about difficulties with sorting mail. I read your reponse to mean
that I may not even require the services of procmail, as I ~am~ using exim
as my MTA. Is this correct? I just want fairly simple pre-sorting of mail
before I read it with mutt.
> BTW, I highly recommend the O'Reilly exim book if you're at all interested in
> learning more about exim. I use it most/all of the time when I have exim
> questions.
>
No doubt a very helpful book. Unfortunately this "capital" city on the east
caost of Canada has just discovered that M$ is ~not~ the only OS. I'd have
to order said book, and wait 4 - 6 weeks for delivery of it. Not sure I can
go through another few weeks of this dilemma.
> hth
>
> --kurt
It certainly gave me a new direction to look into.
Thanks muchly for the input.
C. Masters
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