procmail/examples

[Todd Zullinger]

Gene Heskett wrote:
>>Got a specific problem you're trying to solve?
> 
> Yes, the syntax of ~/.procmailrc
> 
> I see all the examples, but there is not a real tut as to what a :
> character does when it is not the leading char on the line.  Many
> other such questions are similarly unanswered in the available man
> pages.
> 
> To use the above char as an example, what is the diff between
> :0
> and 
> :0:
> 
> as the indicator for a new recipe?

The latter uses a lockfile, which ensures that the mailbox won't be
written while the recipe is executing (at least not by procmail).

For mboxes, you want to use a lockfile, for maildirs you don't (well,
you could use them on maildirs, but they'll just slow things down a
bit).

These sections from procmailrc(1) may now be clearer:

   Recipes
       A line starting with ’:’ marks the beginning of a recipe.  It
       has the following format:

              :0 [flags] [ : [locallockfile] ]
              <zero or more conditions (one per line)>
              <exactly one action line>

[...]

   Local lockfile
       If  you put a second (trailing) ’:’ on the first recipe line,
       then procmail will use a locallockfile (for this recipe only).
       You can optionally specify the locallockfile to use; if you
       don’t however, procmail will use the destination filename (or
       the filename following the first ’>>’)  and  will  append
       $LOCKEXT to it.

-- 
Todd        OpenPGP -> KeyID: 0xBEAF0CE3 | URL: www.pobox.com/~tmz/pgp
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I expected times like this -- but never thought they'd be so bad, so
long, and so frequent.
    -- Demotivators (www.despair.com)

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