*nice* maillog output

[Craig Tinson]

ok.. this doesn't work...

tail -F /var/log/maillog | egrep --line-buffered -v 
'imapd|connection|processing' | awk '{print $1" "$2" -("$3")"}' | grcat 
conf.craig

am presuming that awk doesn't like not have a finished pipe.. but the 
man page doesn't mention anything about buffering..

awk seems the way to go.. because...

 tail -n500 -F /var/log/maillog | egrep --line-buffered -v 
'imapd|connection|processing' | cut -d" " -f0,3,6,7,8,9,10 | grcat 
conf.craig

runs, at the moment, about 30-60 mins from the end of the log... but 
thats probably something completely different....which is a shame.. as 
it gives as close to an output as i'm looking for...

01:59:16 vchkpw-pop3: vpopmail user not found
01:59:30 vchkpw-pop3: (PLAIN) login success craig at 8010.co.uk:127.0.0.1
02:02:55 identified spam (19.1/5.0) for kelerion at thenewmatrix.net:510
02:02:55 identified spam (9.8/5.0) for mark.laurence at polygraphica.com:510
02:03:14 clean message (-4.9/5.0) for craig at 8010.co.uk:510
02:03:24 identified spam (19.4/5.0) for kelerion at thenewmatrix.net:510
02:03:42 clean message (3.6/5.0) for joe at blogs.com:510


am I missing something fundamental here? I get that the pipes are not 
passing completed files (EOF's) to the next command.. but I can't see 
(apart from awk) what could be stopping the chain...

thanks for any ideas...

Craig..