Re: [Nmh-workers] [NEWBIE]: fetchmail/procmail and inc

[Ralph Corderoy]

Hi Xavier,

> > procmail can also store into MH folders, e.g. ~/mail/inbox, IIRC,
> > removing the need for the inc stage.
> 
> Hum, but then, how "MH" knows about new messages ? I think I am
> missing something. Does inc just store messages and nothing else or
> does it do some other stuff (such as updating a "database of new
> mails") ?

inc(1) reads from the mail spool file, e.g. /var/spool/ralph, and
creates individual ~/mail/inbox/[0-9]* files before emptying the spool
file.  It mucks around with the `unseen' sequence too, although that's
not something I've found useful;  that's the `database of new mails'
you're referring to in a way.  MH `knows' about the new ones just
because scan(1) finds the files exist when you do "scan last:20".

> > Since fetchmail can do more complex fetching than inc, likewise
> > procmail can do more complex filtering than slocal I suggest you
> > leave them to do the work they're already doing and either have
> > procmail put stuff in your inbox or create ~/bin/inc that kicks off
> > fetchmail and then runs /usr/bin/mh/inc.
> 
> Problem is I am not sure how procmail and mh can cooperate. Do you
> have any procmail examples ?

See procmailrc(5) for the description of the mail folder ending in "/."
-- search for `mh', and see procmailex(5) for many examples including
ones using MH folders, again search for `mh'.

If you want bash(1) or something else to tell you there's new emails
deposited in +inbox by procmail then I guess you can muck around with
the MAIL environment variable that bash watches and write stuff to $MAIL
in procmailrc;  perhaps someone who uses procmailrc to update +inbox
will say what they do.  Me, I fetchmail, observe its output, and maybe
inc.  :-)

Cheers,


Ralph.