mail filtering (was: [ADMIN] the bug-grep prefix) [bug-grep]

[Bob Proulx]

Charles Levert wrote:
> Since the list also automatically receives
> messages from the Savannah trackers ("bugs"
> and "patch"), it's also possible to define
> filtering rules (procmail or other) to route
> those messages separately.
> 
> I have documented which additional email header
> fields can be used to achieve this in the
> "Information for GNU grep developers" web page
> at <http://www.gnu.org/software/grep/devel.html>.

Since I am using procmail to filter I thought I would share a rule
that makes for general purpose filtering of the gnu.org (and other)
lists.

  :0
  * ^X-BeenThere: address@hidden
  * ^X-BeenThere: \/[-a-zA-Z0-9]+
  $MAILDIR/lists/gnu/$MATCH/

The $MATCH is replaced by the RE after the \/ in the previous rule.
The pattern before that restricts this to only matching gnu.org lists.
This single rule dynamically matches all of the gnu.org lists without
needing individual customization.

I am using maildir format mailboxes.  Traditional mbox format
mailboxes would use the following.  And I have a similar rule for
other sites such as debian and sourceforge.

  :0:
  * ^X-BeenThere: address@hidden
  * ^X-BeenThere: \/[-a-zA-Z0-9]+
  $MAILDIR/lists/gnu/$MATCH

Since I am using mutt as my mailer I can use the following feature to
make all of those known mailboxes to mutt automatically.  (See
'unmailboxes' to turn off an individual list.)

  mailboxes `echo $HOME/Mail/lists/*/*`

The above combination means I can subscribe and unsubscribe as I
desire and my mailer configuration for reading the lists does not need
to change.  It is very convenient.

Hope this was useful.

Bob