MAILDROPFILTER(7)           Double Precision, Inc.           MAILDROPFILTER(7)



NAME
       maildropfilter - maildrop's filtering language

SYNOPSIS
       /etc/courier/maildroprc, $HOME/.mailfilter, $HOME/.mailfilters/*, and
       friends...

DESCRIPTION
       This manual page describes the language used by maildrop to filter
       E-mail messages. The mail filtering instructions are read from a file.
       The language is loosely structured, it is based on pattern matching.
       The language has a distinct lexical and syntactical structure, very
       similar to Perl's, but it is important to note that it is not Perl, and
       is very different from Perl, in certain cases.

       If the filtering instructions do not exist, maildrop delivers the
       message to the default mailbox without doing any additional processing,
       making it indistinguishable from the usual mail delivery agent.

       It is important to note that maildrop reads and parses the filter file
       before doing anything. If there are any errors maildrop prints an error
       message, and terminates with the exit code set to EX_TEMPFAIL. A
       compliant mail transport agent should re-queue the message for a later
       delivery attempt. Hopefully, most simple syntax errors will not cause
       mail to be bounced back if the error is caught and fixed quickly.

   Environment
       maildrop uses variables to access and manipulate messages. Variables
       are arbitrary text accessed by referring to the name of the variable,
       such as HOME, or DEFAULT. Text is placed into a variable by using an
       assignment statement, such as:

           FILE="IN.junk"

       This statement puts the text "IN.junk" (without the quotes) into a
       variable whose name is FILE. Later, the contents of a variable are
       accessed by using the $ symbol and the name for the variable. For
       example:

           to $FILE

       This will deliver the current message to the mailbox file (or a maildir
       directory) named "IN.junk".

       maildrop initially creates variables from the environment variables of
       the operating system, UNLESS maildrop runs in delivery mode. Each
       operating system environment variable becomes a maildrop variable. When
       running in delivery mode, maildrop does not import the environment for
       security reasons, except for the environment variables that define the
       process locale (LANG, LANGUAGE, and LC_*), which are still imported.

       In all cases maildrop resets the following variables to their default
       values: HOME, DEFAULT, SHELL, PATH, LOCKEXT, LOCKREFRESH, LOCKSLEEP,
       LOCKTIMEOUT, MAILDIRQUOTA, SENDMAIL and LOGNAME.

       There's one exception to this rule which applies to the version of
       maildrop that comes with the Courier mail server[1]. The following does
       not apply to the standalone version of maildrop: when running in
       delivery mode, if the -d flag was not used, or if it specifies the same
       userid as the one that's running maildrop: the following variables are
       automatically imported from the environment: HOME, SHELL, LOGNAME and
       MAILDIRQUOTA. These environment variables are initialized by the
       Courier mail server prior to running maildrop. Additionally, the
       initial value for the DEFAULT maildrop variable is imported from the
       MAILDROPDEFAULT environment variable. This is because the Courier mail
       server overloads the DEFAULT environment variable to store the
       defaulted portion of the local mailbox address. See the
       dot-courier(5)[2] man page in the Courier mail server distribution. You
       can get the Courier mail server's DEFAULT value by using the import
       command. Note, however, that this will clobber the old contents of
       DEFAULT, which is probably not what you want. The right way to do this
       would be something like this:

           SAVEDEFAULT=$DEFAULT
           import DEFAULT
           LOCALDEFAULT=$DEFAULT
           DEFAULT=$SAVEDEFAULT

       All internal variables are exported back as environment variables when
       maildrop runs an external command. Changes to internal variables, made
       by the filter file, are reflected in the exported environment.

   Lexical structure
       Most whitespace is generally ignored. The # character introduces a
       comment running to the end of the line, which is also ignored. Unlike
       other mail filters, maildrop parses the filter file before taking any
       action with the message. If there are syntax errors in the file,
       maildrop displays an error message, and returns EX_TEMPFAIL. That
       should cause the mail message to remain in the queue, and, hopefully
       allow the problem to be corrected, without bouncing any mail.

           Note
           In maildrop, the end of line is a lexical token. In order to
           continue a long statement on the next line, terminate the line with
           a backslash character.

   Literal text
       Literal text in the maildrop filtering language is surrounded by either
       single or double quotes. In order to enter a single quote into a text
       literal surrounded by single quotes, or a double quote into a literal
       surrounded by double quotes, prefix it with a backslash character. Use
       two backslash characters characters to enter one backslash character in
       the text literal.

           Note
           A backslash followed by either a backslash, or a matching quote, is
           the only situation where the backslash character is actually
           removed, leaving only the following character in the actual text
           literal. If a backslash character is followed by any other
           character, the backslash is NOT removed.

       Multiple text literals in a row are automatically concatenated, even if
       they use different quotes. For example:

           FOOBAR="Foo"'bar'
           SAVEDEFAULT=$DEFAULT
           import DEFAULT
           LOCALDEFAULT=$DEFAULT
           DEFAULT=$SAVEDEFAULT

       This sets the variable FOOBAR to the text "Foobar".

   Variable substitution
       Variable substitution is performed on text literals that's surrounded
       by double quotation marks. The "$" character, followed by a variable
       name, is replaced by that variable's contents.

           MAILBOX="$HOME/Mailbox"

       This sets the variable MAILBOX to the contents of the variable HOME
       followed by "/Mailbox". Variable names must begin with an uppercase
       letter, a lowercase letter, or an underscore. Following that, all
       letters, digits, and underscores are taken as a variable name, and its
       contents replace the $ sign, and the variable name. It is possible to
       access variables whose name includes other characters, by using braces
       as follows:

           MAILBOX="${HOME-WORD}/Mailbox"

       Inserts the contents of the HOME-WORD variable. If the variable does
       not exist, the empty text literal is used to replace the variable name.
       It is not possible to access variables whose names include the }
       character.

       If the $ character is not followed by a left brace, letter, or an
       underscore, the $ character remains unmolested in the text literal. A
       backslash followed by the $ character results in a $ character in the
       text literal, without doing any variable substitution.

       Variable substitution is not done in text literals which are surrounded
       by single quotes (apostrophes).

   Command line arguments
       maildrop initializes special variables: $1, $2, and so on, with
       additional parameters specified on the maildrop command line. A filter
       file may use those variables just like any other variables.

   Predefined variables
       The following variables are automatically defined by maildrop. The
       default values for the following variables may be changed by the system
       administrator. For security reasons, the values of the following
       variables are always reset to their default values, and are never
       imported from the environment:

       DEFAULT
           The default mailbox to deliver the message to. If the filter file
           does not indicate a mailbox to deliver this message to, the message
           is delivered to this mailbox. The default mailbox is defined by the
           system administrator.

       FROM
           Message envelope sender. This is usually the same address as what
           appears in the From: header, but may not be. This information may
           or may not be available to maildrop on your system. The message
           envelope sender is usually specified with the -f option to
           maildrop. If the -f option is not given, maildrop looks for the
           From_ line in the message. As the last resort, FROM defaults to the
           userid which invoked maildrop. Note that FROM may be empty - the
           message envelope sender is empty for bounce messages.

       HOME
           Home directory of the user running maildrop.

       HOSTNAME
           Network name of the machine running maildrop. Obtained from
           gethostname(3).

       LOCKEXT
           Extension for dot-lock files (default: .lock).

       LOCKREFRESH
           Refresh interval, in seconds, for dot-locks (default: 15). When
           maildrop dot-locks a mailbox, maildrop tries to refresh the lock
           periodically in order to keep other programs from removing a stale
           dot-lock. This is only required if a dot-lock exists for a
           prolonged period of time, which should be discouraged anyway.

       LOCKSLEEP
           Number of seconds to wait to try again to create a dot-lock file,
           if one already exists (default: 5).

       LOCKTIMEOUT
           Number of seconds to wait before removing a stale dot-lock file
           (default: 60). If a dot-lock file still exists after LOCKTIMEOUT
           seconds, maildrop assumes that the process holding the lock no
           longer exists, and the dot-lock file can be safely removed. After
           removing the dot-lock file, maildrop waits LOCKSLEEP seconds before
           trying to create its own dot-lock file, in order to avoid a race
           condition with another process which is also trying to remove the
           same stale dot-lock, at the same time.

       LOGNAME
           Name of the user to whom the message is being delivered.

       MAILDROP_OLD_REGEXP
           Revert to using the old legacy pattern matching engine. Versions of
           maildrop prior to version 2.0 (included in the Courier mail server
           0.51, and earlier), used a built-in pattern matching engine,
           instead of using the PCRE library (see the "Patterns" section).
           maildrop 1.x used a different syntax for patterns, which is no
           longer described in this manual page. The old pattern matching
           engine is still available, by setting MAILDROP_OLD_REGEXP to "1".
           Setting this variable will use the legacy pattern matching engine
           for the rest of the maildrop recipe file.

           The pattern matching engine will be removed completely in a future
           version of maildrop. This setting provides for a transitional
           period of converting old recipes.  MAILDROP_OLD_REGEXP can be set
           to "1" in the global maildroprc file, then reset to "0" in each
           individual maildrop recipe file, after it gets converted to the new
           syntax.

       MAILFILTER
           This is the name of the original filter file that was given to
           maildrop on the command line. This is mostly usefull to -default
           filter files, it allows them to obtain the value of the -M
           option[3] specified on the command line.

       PATH
           Command execution path.  maildrop resets PATH to the system default
           (usually /bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin).

       SENDMAIL
           The mail delivery agent. When maildrop is instructed to deliver the
           message to a mailbox whose name begins with the ! character, this
           is interpreted as a request to forward the message. The SENDMAIL
           command is executed to forward the message.

       SHELL
           The login shell. The shell is used to execute all commands invoked
           by maildrop.

       VERBOSE
           Current Debug level (default: 0). Setting VERBOSE to progressive
           higher values, between 1 and 9, produces debugging output on
           standard error.  maildrop ignores the VERBOSE variable in delivery
           mode (in order not to confuse the mail transport agent).

       UMASK
           The file creation mode mask, in octal. The default setting of 077
           creates mailboxes that are readable and writable by the owner only.
           Use 007 to create mailboxes that are readable/writable by both
           owner and the group. Use 037 to create mailboxes that are readable
           by both owner and group, but writable by owner only. Permissions on
           existing mailboxes are not changed, this setting affects only new
           mailboxes. When delivering to maildirs this setting sets the
           permissions on new messages only. Access permissions on messages in
           maildirs are also affected by the permissions on the maildir
           directories.

   Other special variables
       The following variables are automatically used by maildrop when the
       filter file is being processed:

       EXITCODE
           Return code for maildrop. When maildrop successfully delivers a
           message, it terminates with this exit code, which defaults to 0.
           When the to or the cc command is used to deliver the message to an
           external process, via a pipe, maildrop will set this variable to
           the exit code of the external process. Since maildrop immediately
           terminates after completing the to command this means that
           maildrop's exit code will be the exit code of the external process.
           If the to command does not deliver the message to a process you
           must set EXITCODE before the to command, since maildrop terminates
           immediately after finishing the delivery.

       KEYWORDS
           The KEYWORDS variable is used only when delivering a message to a
           maildir, and implements the optional IMAP keyword extension as
           implemented in the Courier IMAP server[1]. It may be optionally
           initialized to contain a comma-separate list of keywords. The to,
           or the cc command, delivers the message to the maildir normally,
           but also associated the list of keywords in KEYWORDS with the newly
           delivered message.


           KEYWORDS must be set before the message is delivered to a maildir.
           The contents of KEYWORDS are ignored, when delivering on an mbox
           folder.

       LINES
           Number of lines in the current message. Note that this may be an
           approximation. It may or may not take into account the -A option,
           or any mbox "From_" lines. Use this as criteria for filtering,
           nothing more.

       MAILDIRQUOTA
           Set this variable in order to manually enforce a maximum size on
           ANY maildir where the message is delivered. This is an optional
           feature that must be enabled by the system administrator, see
           maildirquota(8)[4] for more information.

       RETURNCODE
           This variable is set when maildrop runs the xfilter[5] command, or
           a command that's specified within a pair of backtick characters (
           command substitution ). The RETURNCODE variable will be set to the
           exit code of the command, after it completes.

       SIZE
           Number of bytes in the message. This may or may not include the -A
           option, and the mbox From_ line. Use this as a criteria for
           filtering, nothing more.

   Unquoted text
       All text strings in filter files should be in single, or double quotes.
       However, for convenience sake, quotes can be omitted under certain
       circumstances.

       Text that includes ONLY letters, digits, and the following characters:
       _-.:/${}@ may appear without quotes. Note that this does not allow
       spaces, or backslashes to be entered, however the text is still
       variable-substituted, and the substituted text may contain other
       characters.

       Also, note that patterns (see below) begin with the slash character.
       Normally, anything that begins with the slash is interpreted as a
       pattern. However, text immediately after "VARIABLE=" is interpreted as
       a string even if it begins with a slash. This is why something like:

           MAILDIR=/var/mail

       works as expected. Using quotes, though, is highly recommended. You
       must use quotes to set a variable to a lone slash, because an unquoted
       slash is interpreted as a division sign.

       Long double or singly-quoted text can be broken across multiple lines
       by ending the line with a lone backslash character, like this:

           TEXT="This is a long \
            text string"

       The backslash, the newline, and all leading whitespace on the next line
       is removed, resulting in "This is a long text string".

   Command substitution
       Text enclosed in back-tick characters is interpreted as a shell
       command. The shell command is executed as a child process by maildrop.
       Its output is used in place of the command. For example:

           DIR=`ls`

       places the names of the files in the current directory into the DIR
       variable.

       The output of the command will have all newline characters replaced by
       spaces, and leading and trailing spaces will be stripped (multiple
       spaces are not removed, though). Also, the contents of the message
       being delivered is made available to the command on standard input.

   Patterns
       The pattern syntax in maildrop is similar to the grep command's syntax,
       with some minor differences. A pattern takes the following form in the
       filter file:

           /pattern/:options

       pattern specifies the text to look for in the message.  pattern must
       not begin with a space, otherwise the leading slash will then be
       interpreted as a division sign. If you must search for text that starts
       with a space, use something like "/[ ] ... /".

       The general syntax of maildrop's patterns is described in the
       pcrepattern(3) manual page, with certain exceptions noted below.
       maildrop uses the PCRE[6] library to implement pattern matching. Not
       all features in PCRE are available in maildrop, and the "options" part,
       which follows the pattern specification, changes the pattern matching
       further. Consult the pcrepattern(3) manual page for more information,
       but note the following exceptions:

       o    UTF-8 string matching is not presently supported.

       o   Internal options settings are not supported (but see the "D"
           maildrop option, below). Do not include option settings in the
           pattern, doing so will lead to undefined results.

       o   Named subpatterns are not implemented. Numbered subpatterns are
           implemented, see "Pattern Match Results", below.

   Pattern options
       Following /pattern/, there may be an optional colon, followed by one.
       or more options. The following options may be specified in any order:

       h
           Match this pattern against the message header.

       b
           Match this pattern against the message body.

       D
           This is a case sensitive match. Normally the patterns match either
           uppercase or lowercase text.  /john/ will match "John", "john", or
           "JOHN". Specify the D option for a case-sensitive search: lowercase
           letters in the pattern must match lowercase letters in the message;
           ditto for uppercase.

       If neither 'h' or 'b' is specified, the pattern is matched against the
       header only. Specifying the 'b' option causes the pattern to be matched
       against the message body. Specifying both causes the pattern to be
       matched against the entire message.

       Normally, each line in the message gets matched against the pattern
       individually. When applying patterns to a header, multi-line headers
       (headers split on several lines by beginning each continuation line
       with whitespace) are silently combined into a single line, before the
       pattern is applied.

   Weighted scoring
       Patterns are evaluated by maildrop as any other numerical expression.
       If a pattern is found, maildrop's filter interprets the results of the
       pattern match as number 1, or true, for filtering purposes. If a
       pattern is not found the results of the pattern search is zero. Once a
       pattern is found, the search stops. Second, and subsequent occurrences
       of the same pattern are NOT searched for.

       maildrop can also do weighted scoring. In weighted scoring, multiple
       occurrences of the same pattern are used to calculate a numerical
       score.

       To use a weighted search, specify the pattern as follows:

           /pattern/:options,xxx,yyy

       where xxx and yyy are two numbers.  yyy is optional -- it will default
       to 1, if missing.

       The first occurrence of the pattern is evaluated as xxx. The second
       occurrence of the pattern is evaluated as xxx*yyy, the third as
       xxx*yyy*yyy, etc... All occurrences of the pattern are added up to
       calculate the final score.

           Note
           maildrop does not recognize multiple occurrences of the same
           pattern in the same line. Multiple occurences of the same pattern
           in one line count as one occurence.

   Pattern Match Results
       After a pattern is successfully matched, the actual text that is
       matched is placed in the MATCH variable. For example:

           /^From:.*/

       matches a line of the form:

       From: postmaster@localhost        .PP Here the variable MATCH will be
       set to "From: postmaster@localhost", which can be used in subsequent
       statements.

       If the pattern contains subpatterns, the portions of the text that
       match the first subpattern is placed in the MATCH1 variable. The second
       subpattern, if any, is placed in MATCH2, and so on:

           /^From:\s+(.*)@(.*)/

       matched against the same line will set MATCH to "From:
       postmaster@localhost", MATCH1 to "postmaster", and MATCH2 to
       "localhost". Of course, in real world the "From:" header is usually
       much more complicated, and can't be handled that easily. This is just
       an illustrative example.

           Note
           Subpatterns are not processed in the foreach statement.

   Conversion of maildrop 1.x patterns to 2.0
       Although the new PCRE-based pattern matching code in maildrop is
       completely different from the built-in pattern matching code in
       maildrop 1.x, very few changes will be required to convert recipes to
       the new syntax. The only major differences are:

       o   The subexpression format has changed. Any pattern that uses
           subexpression needs to be converted. Additionally, references to
           MATCH2 must be replaced with MATCH1, MATCH3 to MATCH2, and so on.
           References to plain old MATCH will remain the same.

       o   The "w" pattern option is no longer possible, with PCRE. The very
           few recipes that use this option, if any actually exist, will have
           to be rewritten in some other fashion.

   Expressions
       Although maildrop evaluates expressions numerically, results of
       expressions are stored as text literals. When necessary, text literals
       are converted to numbers, then the results of a mathematical operation
       is converted back into a text literal.

       Operators
           The following operators carry their usual meaning, and are listed
           in order from lowest precedence, to the highest:


               ||
               &&
               <  <=  >  >=  ==  !=  lt  le  gt  ge  eq  ne
               |
               &
               +  -
               *  /
               =~ /pattern/
               /pattern/  !  ~  function()


       Variable assignment
               VARIABLE=expression

           Assigns the result of the expression to VARIABLE (note no leading $
           in front of variable).

               Note
               If VARIABLE is NOT surrounded by quotes, then it may contain
               only letters, numbers, underscores, dashes, and a selected few
               other characters. In order to initialize a variable whose name
               contains non-standard punctuation marks, surround the name of
               the variable with quotes.

       cc - deliver a copy of the message
               cc expression

           The cc statement is very similar to the to statement, except that
           after delivering the message maildrop continues to process the
           filter file, unlike the to statement which immediately terminates
           maildrop after the delivery is complete. Essentially, the message
           is carbon copied to the given mailbox, and may be delivered again
           to another mailbox by another cc or to statement.

           See the to statement[7] for more details. When cc is used to
           deliver a message to a process maildrop will set the EXITCODE
           variable to the process's exit code.

       dotlock - create a manual dot-lock
               dotlock expression {

                     ...

               }

           maildrop automatically creates a lock when a message is delivered
           to a mailbox. Depending upon your system configuration, maildrop
           will use either dot-locks, or the flock() system call.

           The dotlock statement creates an explicit dot-lock file. Use the
           flock statement[8] to create an explicit flock() lock.

           The expression is a filename that should be used as a lock file.
           maildrop creates the indicated dot-lock, executes the filtering
           instructions contained within the { ... } block, and removes the
           lock. The expression must be the name of the dot-lock file itself,
           NOT the name of the mailbox file you want to lock.

               Note
               With manual locking, it is possible to deadlock multiple
               maildrop processes (or any other processes that try to claim
               the same locks).

               No deadlock detection is possible with dot-locks, and since
               maildrop automatically refreshes all of its dot-locks
               regularly, they will never go stale. You'll have maildrop
               processes hanging in limbo, until their watchdog timers go off,
               aborting the mail delivery.

       echo - output diagnostic information
               echo expression

           maildrop will print the given text. This is usually used when
           maildrop runs in embedded mode, but can be used for debugging
           purposes. Normally, a newline is printed after the text. If text is
           terminated with a \c, no newline will be printed.

       exception - trap fatal errors
               exception {

                  ...

               }

           The exception statement traps errors that would normally cause
           maildrop to terminate. If a fatal error is encountered anywhere
           within the block of statements enclosed by the exception clause,
           execution will resume immediately following the exception clause.

       exit - terminate filtering unconditionally
               exit

           The exit statement immediately terminates filtering.  maildrop's
           return code is set to the value of the EXITCODE variable. Normally,
           maildrop terminates immediately after successfully delivering the
           message[7] to a mailbox. The exit statement causes maildrop to
           terminate without delivering the message anywhere.

           The exit statement is usually used when maildrop runs in embedded
           mode[9], when message delivery instructions are not allowed.

       flock - create an manual flock() lock
               flock expression {

                     ...

               }

           maildrop automatically creates a lock when a message is delivered
           to a mailbox. Depending upon your system configuration, maildrop
           will use either dot-locks, or the flock() system call.

           The flock statement creates a manual flock() lock. Use the dotlock
           statement[10] to create a manual dot-lock file.

           The expression is the name of the file that should be locked.
           maildrop creates the lock on the indicated file, executes the
           filtering instructions contained within the { ... } block, and
           removes the lock.

               Note
               With manual locking, it is possible to deadlock multiple
               maildrop processes (or any other processes that try to claim
               the same locks). The operating system will automatically break
               flock() deadlocks. When that happens, one of the maildrop
               processes will terminate immediately. Use the exception
               statement in order to trap this exception condition, and
               execute an alternative set of filtering instructions.

       foreach - iterate over text sections matched by a pattern
               foreach /pattern/:options
               {
                   ...
               }

               foreach (expression) =~ /pattern/:options
               {
                   ...
               }

           The foreach statement executes a block of statements for each
           occurrence of the given pattern in the given message, or
           expression. On every iteration MATCH variable will be set to the
           matched string. All the usual options may be applied to the pattern
           match, EXCEPT the following:

           ,xxx,yyy
               Weighted scoring is meaningless, in this context.

           ( ... )
               Subpatterns are not processed. Only the MATCH variable will be
               set for each found pattern.

       if - conditional execution
               if (expression)
               {
                   ...
               }
               else
               {
                   ...
               }

           Conditional execution. If expression evaluates to a logical true
           (note - parenthesis are required) then the first set of statements
           is executed. The else keyword, and the subsequent statements, are
           optional. If present, and the expression evaluates to a logical
           false, the else part is executed.

           maildrop evaluates all expression as text strings. In the context
           of a logical expression, an empty string, or the number 0
           constitutes a logical false value, anything else is a logical true
           value.

           If the if part, or the else part consists of only one statement,
           the braces may be omitted.

               Note
               The grammar of this if statement is stricter than usual. If you
               get baffling syntax errors from maildrop, make sure that the
               braces, and the if statement, appear on separate lines.
               Specifically: the closing parenthesis, the closing braces, and
               the else statement, must be at the end of the line (comments
               are allowed), and there may not be any blank lines in between
               (not even ones containing comments only).

           If the else part contains a single if, and nothing else, this may
           be combined into an elsif:

               if (expression)
               {
                   ...
               }
               elsif (expression)
               {
                   ...
               }

           The above example is logically identical to:

               if (expression)
               {
                   ...
               }
               else
               {
                   if (expression)
                   {
                       ...
                   }
               }

           Consecutive elsif sequences are allowed:

               if (expression)
               {
                   ...
               }
               elsif (expression)
               {
                   ...
               }
               elsif (expression)
               {
                   ...
               }

           Consecutive occurences of elsif commands eliminate a significant
           amount of indentation, and the resulting code is more readable.

       import - access original environment variable
               import variable

           When maildrop starts, it normally imports the contents of the
           environment variables, and assigns them to internal maildrop
           variables. For example, if there was an environment variable FOO,
           the internal maildrop variable FOO will have the contents of the
           environment variable. From then on, FOO will be no different than
           any other variable, and when maildrop runs an external command, the
           contents of maildrop's variables will be exported as the
           environment for the command.

           Certain variables, like HOME and PATH, are always reset to fixed
           defaults, for security reasons. Also, in delivery and embedded
           modes, the environment is not imported at all (with the exception
           of system locale environment variables), and maildrop starts with
           only the fixed default variables.

           The import statement initializes the specified variable with the
           contents of the original environment variable when maildrop
           started. For example:

               echo "PATH is $PATH"
               PATH="/bin"
               echo "PATH is $PATH"
               import PATH
               echo "PATH is $PATH"
               exit

           This results in the following output:

               PATH is /bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin
               PATH is /bin
               PATH is /home/root/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin

           This shows that when maildrop starts PATH is set to the fixed
           default of /bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin. However, the original
           contents of the PATH environment variable we different, and the
           import statement shows what it was.

       include - execute filtering instructions from another file
               include expression

           The include statement reads a file, and executes filtering
           instructions contained in that file. Note that the include
           statement is processed when the current filter file is being
           executed. When maildrop reads the initial filter file, any syntax
           errors in the filtering instructions are immediately reported, and
           maildrop will terminate with a return code of EX_TEMPFAIL. Any
           errors in files specified by include statements are NOT reported,
           because those files will not be read until the include statement is
           itself executed.

           If the specified file does not exist, or if there are any syntax
           errors in the file, maildrop reports the error, and terminates with
           a return code of EX_TEMPFAIL.

       log, logfile - log message deliveries
               logfile expression

               log expression

           Logging in maildrop is normally turned off. The logfile statement
           specifies the file where maildrop will log how the message has been
           disposed of. The parameter is then name of the file. If the file
           exists maildrop appends to the file.

           For each delivery (the to[7] and cc[11] statements, and default
           deliveries) maildrop records the From: and the Subject: fields,
           together with the current time, in the log file.

           The log statement adds additional logging text to the log file. The
           log statement works exactly like the echo statement, except that
           the text is written to the logfile, instead of standard output.

       to - deliver message to a mailbox
               to expression

           The to statement delivers the message to a mailbox.  expression
           must evaluate to a valid mailbox. A valid mailbox is either a
           mailbox file, a maildir, or an external program (which includes
           forwarding to another address).

           The to statement is the final delivery statement.  maildrop
           delivers message, then immediately terminates, with its return code
           set to the EXITCODE variable. If there was an error while
           delivering the message, maildrop terminates with the EX_TEMPFAIL
           exit code. A properly-written mail transport agent should re-queue
           the message, and re-attempt delivery at some later time.

           An expression that begins with the "|" character specifies an
           external program to run to handle the actual delivery. The SHELL
           variable specifies the shell to execute the given command. The
           message is provided to the command on standard input.  maildrop's
           exit code will be the process's exit code.

           An expression that begins with an exclamation mark, "!" specifies a
           whitespace-delimited list of E-mail addresses to forward the
           message to. The program specified by the SENDMAIL variable is run
           as an external program, with the list of E-mail addresses provided
           as parameters to the program.

           Otherwise, expression names the mailbox where maildrop delivers the
           message. If expression is a directory, maildrop assumes that the
           directory is a maildir directory. Otherwise, maildrop will deliver
           the message to a file, formatted in traditional mailbox format.
           maildrop will use either dot-locking, or flock()-locking when
           delivering the message to the file.

       while - repeatedly execute a block of statements
               while (expression)
               {
                   ...
               }

           The expression is repeatedly evaluated. Each time it evaluates to a
           logical true[12], the statements inside the braces are executed.
           When expression evaluates to a logical false, the while loop is
           over. Take care to avoid infinite loops.

       xfilter - filter message through another program
               xfilter expression

           expression specifies an external program that maildrop runs to
           filter the current message. The current message will be piped to
           the filter program as standard input. The output of the filter
           program replaces the current message being delivered. The external
           program must terminate with an exit code of 0. If the external
           program does not terminate with an exit code of 0, or if it does
           not read the message from the standard input, maildrop terminates
           with an exit code of EX_TEMPFAIL.

       || - logical or
               expression1 || expression2


           If expression1 evaluates to a logical true, the result of the || is
           expression1, otherwise it's expression2, which is evaluated.

           maildrop uses the following concept of true/false: an empty text
           literal, or a text literal that consists of the single character
           "0" is a logical false value. Anything else is a logical true
           value.

       && - logical and
               expression1 && expression2


           If expression1 evaluates to a logical false, the result of the &&
           is expression1, otherwise it's expression2, which is evaluated.

           maildrop uses the following concept of true/false: an empty text
           literal, or a text literal that consists of the single character
           "0" is a logical false value. Anything else is a logical true
           value.

       <, <=, >, >=, ==, != - numerical comparison
               expression1 < expression2

               expression1 <= expression2

               expression1 > expression2

               expression1 >= expression2

               expression1 == expression2

               expression1 != expression2


           These operators compare their left hand side expression against
           their right hand side. These operators compare the numerical values
           of each side, as floating point numbers. If the numbers compare as
           indicated, the result of the comparison is the text string "1",
           otherwise it is the text string 0.

               Note
               Ccomparisons are not associative: "a < b < c" is an error. If
               it is absolutely necessary, use "(a < b) < c".

       lt, le, gt, ge, eq, ne - text comparison
               expression1 lt expression2

               expression1 le expression2

               expression1 gt expression2

               expression1 ge expression2

               expression1 eq expression2

               expression1 ne expression2


           These operators compare their left hand side expression against
           their right hand side. These operators compare each side as text
           strings (alphabetically, although the text may include anything).
           If the text strings compare as indicated, the result of the
           comparison is the text string "1", otherwise it is the text string
           0.

               Note
               Comparisons are not associative: "a lt b lt c" is an error. If
               it is absolutely necessary, use "(a lt b) lt c". (But why would
               you?).

       | - bitwise or
               expression1 | expression2

           This is the bitwise or operator. Its result is a 32 bit integer,
           which is a bitwise-or combination of the left hand side and the
           right hand side.

       & - bitwise and
               expression1 & expression2

           This is the bitwise and operator. Its result is a 32 bit integer,
           which is a bitwise-and combination of the left hand side and the
           right hand side.

       +, -, *, / - numerical operations
               expression1 + expression2

               expression1 - expression2

               expression1 * expression2

               expression1 / expression2


           These are numerical, floating point, operators.

       =~ /pattern/:options - pattern match against string
               expression =~ /pattern/:option

           The left hand side of the =~ operator can be any expression. The
           right hand side is always a pattern specification. The result of
           the operator is the weighted match of the pattern against
           expression (if the options do not specify weighted scoring, the
           result is simply 1 if the pattern was found, 0 if not).

           See "Patterns[13]" for more information.

       /pattern/:options - pattern match against message
               /pattern/:option

           The result of this operator is the weighted match of the pattern
           against the current message (if the options do not specify weighted
           scoring, the result is simply 1 if the pattern was found, 0 if
           not).

           See "Patterns[13]" for more information.

       !, ~ - logical/bitwise not operator.
               ! expression

               ~ expression

           The result of the !  operator is a logical opposite of its right
           hand side expression. If the right hand side expression evaluated
           to a logical true, the result is a logical false. If it evaluated
           to a logical false, the result is a logical true.

           maildrop uses the following concept of true/false: an empty text
           literal, or a text literal that consists of the single character
           "0" is a logical false value. Anything else is a logical true
           value.

           The result of the ~ operator is a bitwise complement of its right
           hand side expression. The right hand side expression is evaluated
           as a 32 bit integer, and the result of this operator is a bitwise
           complement of the result.

       escape(string) - escape special characters in a string.
               escape(expression)

           The escape function returns its sole argument with every occurrence
           of a special character prefixed by a backslash. A special character
           is any of the following characters:

               |!$()[]\+*?.&;`'-~<>^{}"

           This can used when matching pattern sections[14], and then taking
           one section and matching it again. For example:

               if ( /^From:\s*(.*)/ )
               {
                    MATCH1=escape($MATCH1)
                    if ( /^Subject:.*$MATCH1/ )
                    {
                       ...
                    }
               }

           This example checks if the contents of the From: header can also be
           found in the Subject: header. If the escape function were not used,
           then any special characters in the From: header that are also used
           in regular expressions, such as * or +, would introduce
           unpredictable behavior, most likely a syntax error.

           The reason why this list of special characters also includes
           characters not used in maildrop's regular expressions is to allow
           maildrop's variables to be used on the command line of a shell
           command executed by the xfilter command, backtick characters, or to
           or cc commands.

           Although using data from an external data source is dangerous, and
           it may result in inadvertent exploits, using the escape function
           should hopefully result in fewer surprises.

       gdbmopen, gdbmclose, gdbmfetch, gdbmstore - GDBM support in maildrop
           These functions provide support for GDBM database files. See
           maildropgdbm(5)[15] for more information.

               Note
               The system administrator can disable GDBM support in maildrop,
               so these commands may not be available to you.

       getaddr(string) - extract RFC 2822 addresses from a header.
               if ( /^From:\s*(.*)/ )
               {
                    ADDR=getaddr($MATCH1)
               }

           This function is usually applied to a header that contains RFC
           2822[16] addresses. It extracts the actual addresses from the
           header, without any comments or extraneous punctuation. Each
           address is followed by a newline character. For example, if string
           contains:

               joe@domain.com (Joe Brown), "Alex Smith" <alex@domain.com>, tom@domain.com

           The result of the getaddr function is the following string:

               joe@domain.com<NL>alex@domain.com<NL>tom@domain.com<NL>

               Note
               Because getaddr() interprets RFC 2822[17] loosely, it is not
               necessary to strip off the "To:" or the "Cc:" header from the
               string, before feeding it to getaddr(). For example, the
               following snippet of code takes all addresses in the message,
               and concatenates them into a single string, separated by
               spaces:

                   ADDRLIST=""
                   foreach /^(To|Cc): .*/
                   {
                       foreach (getaddr $MATCH) =~ /.+/
                       {
                          ADDRLIST="$ADDRLIST $MATCH"
                       }
                   }

               Note
               In certain rare situations, RFC 2822[17] allows spaces to be
               included in E-mail addresses, so this example is just
               educational.

       hasaddr(string) - Search for an address.
               if ( hasaddr(string) )
               {
                  ...
               }

           "string" is of the form user@domain. The hasaddr function returns 1
           if this address is included in any To:, Cc:,Resent-To:, or
           Resent-Cc:, header in the message, otherwise this function returns
           0.

           This is more than just a simple text search. Each header is parsed
           according to RFC822. Addresses found in the header are extracted,
           ignoring all comments and names. The remaining addresses are
           checked, and if "string" is one of them, hasaddr returns 1,
           otherwise it returns 0.

           The comparison is case-insensitive. This actually violates RFC822
           (and several others) a little bit, because the user part of the
           address may be (but is not required to be) case sensitive.

       length (string) - length of a string
               if (length(string) > 80)
               {
                  ...
               }

           The length function returns the number of characters in string.

       lookup (expr, 'filename', 'options') - read file for patterns
               if (lookup(expr, file, "option"))
               {
                  ...
               }

           expr is any expression.  filename is a name of a file containing a
           list of patterns. Note that filename is relative to the current
           directory, which is the home directory of the user when maildrop
           runs in delivery mode, or embedded mode.  maildrop then reads the
           file. Blank lines will be ignored, as well as any lines that begin
           with the # character (comments).

           Leading whitespace (but not trailing whitespace, take care) is
           removed, and the remaining contents of each line are interpreted as
           a pattern which is matched against expr. As soon as the match is
           found, lookup returns "1". If no match is found after reading the
           entire file, lookup returns "0". For example:

               if ( /^To:\s*(.*)/ && lookup( $MATCH1, "badto.dat" ))
               {
                  exit
               }

           The file badto.dat contains the following two lines:

               friend@public
               ^[^@]*$

           If a message has a To: header that contains the text
           "friend@public", or does not contain at least one @ character, then
           the message will be silently dropped on the floor ( maildrop will
           terminate without delivering the message anywhere).

           options are the pattern matching options to use. The only supported
           option is "D" (the rest are meaningless, in this case).

               Note
               Be careful with discarding messages like that. Pattern matching
               can be tricky, and a slight miscalculation can cause mail to be
               unintentionally discarded. It is much desirable to first
               deliver message to a separate folder or mailbox, and once the
               filter is verified to work correctly, change it so the messages
               are discarded completely.

       substr(string,start [,count]) - return substring
               foo=substr($foo, 1, 10)

           The substr function extracts characters from string beginning with
           character #start. If count is specified, at most count characters
           starting at position start are kept, any excess is trimmed.

       time - return current time
               foo=time

           The time function returns the current time, in seconds, since
           January 1, 1970. This function is useful when using GDBM files. See
           maildropex(7)[18] for an example of using the time function.

       tolower(string) - Convert string to lowercase.
               foo=tolower(string)

           This function returns the string with all uppercase characters
           replaced by lowercase characters.

       toupper(string) - Convert string to uppercase.
               foo=toupper(string)

           This function returns the string with all lowercase characters
           replaced by uppercase characters.

   Statements
       The filter file is read by maildrop ($HOME/.mailfilter or another
       file), and it contains filtering statements, one per line. The
       filtering language used by maildrop has a loosely - defined grammatical
       structure.

       Statements are listed one per line. Multiple statements may be listed
       on the same line by separating them with semicolons. To continue a long
       statement on the next line, terminate the line with a backslash
       character.

BUGS
       If getaddr() or hasaddr() functions are used on broken headers, the
       results are unpredictable.

       hasaddr() is completely case insensitive. This actually violates a few
       RFCs, because the userid portion of the address could be
       case-sensitive, but it's not in too many cases, so there.

SEE ALSO
       lockmail(1)[19], maildrop(1)[20], maildropgdbm(5)[15],
       maildirquota(8)[4], reformail(1)[21], egrep(1), sendmail(8).

AUTHOR
       Sam Varshavchik
           Author

NOTES
        1. Courier mail server
           http://www.courier-mta.org/

        2. dot-courier(5)
           [set $man.base.url.for.relative.links]/dot-courier.html

        3. value of the -M option
           [set $man.base.url.for.relative.links]/maildrop.html#moption

        4. maildirquota(8)
           [set $man.base.url.for.relative.links]/maildirquota.html

        5. xfilter
           [set $man.base.url.for.relative.links]/#xfilter

        6. PCRE
           http://www.pcre.org

        7. See the to statement
           [set $man.base.url.for.relative.links]/#to

        8. flock statement
           [set $man.base.url.for.relative.links]/#flock

        9. embedded mode
           [set $man.base.url.for.relative.links]/maildrop.html#embedded

       10. dotlock statement
           [set $man.base.url.for.relative.links]/#dotlock

       11. cc
           [set $man.base.url.for.relative.links]/#cc

       12. evaluates to a logical true
           [set $man.base.url.for.relative.links]/#if

       13. Patterns
           [set $man.base.url.for.relative.links]/#patterns

       14. matching pattern sections
           [set $man.base.url.for.relative.links]/#patmatch

       15. maildropgdbm(5)
           [set $man.base.url.for.relative.links]/maildropgdbm.html

       16. RFC 2822
           http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2822.txt

       17. RFC 2822
           http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc822.txt

       18. maildropex(7)
           [set $man.base.url.for.relative.links]/maildropex.html

       19. lockmail(1)
           [set $man.base.url.for.relative.links]/lockmail.html

       20. maildrop(1)
           [set $man.base.url.for.relative.links]/maildrop.html

       21. reformail(1)
           [set $man.base.url.for.relative.links]/reformail.html



Courier Mail Server               04/04/2011                 MAILDROPFILTER(7)
