scs@vax3 (Steve Simmons) (05/08/89)
Was playing around with 'filter' today, and got some ideas for using
it. Unfortunately what I want to do it doesn't look real doable. I'd
like to hear other opinions on this sort of use, and if anyone has
already figured ways to do what I want.
Background: junk electronic mail is a real problem here. Culturally
I can't fight it, and have decided the best tactic is to make it
easier to deal with. We *don't* want to stop it, but do want some
automatable ways to clean it up.
I'd like to use filter (or a filter-like utility) to automaticly
delete all messages in /usr/spool/mail older than 90 days, to delete
all messages sent to 'all' older than 30 days. I'd like users to be
able to apply this facility via shell script to any arbitrary mailbox.
I'd like to be able to have site-wide filter rulesets for just this
purpose, eg,
filter -R /usr/local/lib/elm/filter-out-old-junk . .
The two primary problems I see are (a) filter is designed to deal
with one and only one message at a time, (b) filter is designed to
automaticly ignore already-filtered mail. (B) can only be changed
by changing the code, but (a) might be possible with some shell
scripts. Can anyone stop me from re-inventing the wheel?
Steve Simmons Just another midwestern boy
scs@vax3.iti.org -- or -- ...!sharkey!itivax!scs
"Hey...you *can* get here from here!"