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Re: Advanced alternates regexp



David, et al --

...and then David Rock said...
% 
% * David T-G <davidtg-muttusers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> [2003-09-08 06:19]:
% > ...and then David Rock said...
% > 
% > % username on the box is davidtg
...
% > 
% > Basically (you leave out the davidtg- since it's in my home dir and picks
% > up the davidtg that way).  You've missed a very important file, though,
% > as well as an additional wrinkle.  Read on.
% 
% OK, so the files in this example would be:
%       ~davidtg/.qmail-muttusers
...
%       ~davidtg/.qmail-list-zoo
%       etc...
% and would also likely include:
%       ~davidtg/.qmail-default
%       ~davidtg/.qmail-list-default
%       etc...

Something like that.


% 
% > % problem is actually simpler than I thought. Just create a script to walk
% > % the directory for .qmail-extension and build the alternates dynamically 
% > % from that.
% > 
% > That's a start, but it is not sufficiently encompassing.
% 
% I see that now. dang.

Now perhaps you can see more why I was smiling ;-)


% 
% > 1) There's a .qmail-default file (actually at any dash level) which takes
% > care of addresses not specifically defined otherwise
% 
% So you could set a reply-to header with an address that doesn't actuall
% exist, and as long as it gets caught by a default, it will still work:
% (i.e. davidtg-list-extra gets caught by ~davidtg/.qmail-list-default)

Yep.  Or I can, without any prior preparation, tell the marketer from
ACME that my address is davidtg-acme (I love doing that; about one in
three does a doubletake and thinks it's so amazingly coincidental that my
email has his company name in it and usually asks if I work for that
company :-) or sign up for the JCPenney sales list as davidtg-jcpenney.


% 
% I have to admit, that's kind of cool, if not really annoying for this.

Yeah :-)


% Hmm, I wonder if defaults could be picked up by a regex:
%  set 
alternates="(davidtg|davidtg-(muttusers|foo|bar|list-[a-zA-Z0-9]+))@domain"
% and so on....

Well, heck, I have that already.

  set alternates="(^davidtg(pager|work...|davidtg.*@justpickone|...)

What I need is a way to match the stuff that doesn't start with davidtg
and is somehow excludes (laura|madi|quin)tg.


% 
% I just thought of this. If the above works, then why not just use
% something that matches EVERYTHING after davidtg:
%       set alternates="(davidtg|davidtg-[a-zA-Z0-9-]+)@domain"
% 
% generic, and probably has a few cases that don't match, but an
% interesting possiblity.

Indeed.


% 
% > 2) I might have my bigfoot mail handled by .qmail-bigfoot when it gets
% > forwarded here but that doesn't mean that "davidtg-bigfoot@xxxxxxxxxx"
% > should appear in my alternates list.
% 
% You would probably have to maintain a list of excluded addresses to do
% this (which would be tough with the above "catch everything" example).

Well, as I think about it it wouldn't actually *hurt* to have that goofy
thing in there; the thing we need is to have my old bigfoot address
appear in the list as well.  So that lets us have the manual list and
then add to it with the script, which is fine.  Forget excluded addresses
and work with included addresses.


% 
...
% > take care of the case where I have an account on another machine where I
% > *also* define many addresses (davidtg+this+and+that@xxxxxxxxxx or such)
% > but, amongst other things, cannot walk the .qmail tree or its equivalent.
% 
% OK, now this is getting rediculous. keeping track of addresses that the
% system can't even access? Throw me a bone, would ya? ;-)

More silly grinning, waiting for that wipe :-)


% 
% > [Oh, and I don't know how sendmail, exim, postfix do their alias handling,
% > but if you can write it for qmail, which can use dash or plus or any char(s)
% > you want, then you can write it for those as well.]
% 
% Most of these aren't set up to work this way. I don't think any of them
% have user-controlled aliases. sendmail and postfix use an alias file in
% /etc/mail with one for one references:
%       address :       destination

Hmmm...


% 
% postfix also has a virtual table and relocation table that can do more
% ornate redirection, but it's still an admin-based table.

Really?  I was so sure that those user+list addresses were defined at the
user level in some MTA's world...


% 
% -- 
% David Rock
% david@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx


HTH & HAND

:-D
-- 
David T-G                      * There is too much animal courage in 
(play) davidtg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx * society and not sufficient moral courage.
(work) davidtgwork@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx  -- Mary Baker Eddy, "Science and Health"
http://justpickone.org/davidtg/      Shpx gur Pbzzhavpngvbaf Qrprapl Npg!

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