Subject: Autoreply and Mail Sorting: Re: two messages

From: Paul O Bartlett <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 07:03:19 -0500

On 31 Mar 1996, Ashish S. Nadkarni wrote:

> dear sir,
> 	could you please let me know whether pine supports auto reply or
> whether i need to install an auto reply/filtering system.i have heard of
> procmail but i do not know where to get it from.any suggestions?
> 	thanks
> ashish

On 30 Mar 1996, Deborah Olsen wrote:

> Okay can someone please settle this once and for all.  I'm getting all
> types of stories.
>
> I'm using PINE 3.92 for UNIX and I need to edit my .pinerc so I can
> distribute mail as it comes in into it's designated folder.
> [...]

    Both of these inquiries can actually be answered together.  Pine
(even the new Pine 3.92) does NOT do autoreply.  Also, Pine does NOT
presort incoming mail into separate folders based on criteria such as
coming from different mailing lists.  In either case, you have to use
some program which preprocesses the mail before Pine gets hold of it.
One of the more common programs for Unix systems, as Ashish Nadkarni
noted, is procmail.  Procmail can do both autoreply and sorting of mail
into folders (as well as a lot more -- it's a powerful program).

    Nancy McGough has made a great deal of very useful information
available on Pine and mail filtering/preprocessing via the World Wide
Web.  If you have a Web browser, browse my home page and follow the
link to Nancy's pages.  Look at the Contents and find what you need.

Paul                             <[email-masked]>
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Paul O. Bartlett, P.O. Box 857, Vienna, VA 22183-0857, USA
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