filtering on DATE

[mjustman]

I keep getting spam that has a date that always evaluates to sometime earlier than NOW.

Is there a way to use the "date" option in the filter dialog (poco 3.5, but my guess is it is probably the same now) to catch these? Clearly, it'll have to be "earlier than the current month/year - 1 month", since some legit mail does come in stamped earlier than the exact moment on MY machine, and making it too tight would kill legit mail sent on 1st of month.

Can somebody supply the exact language?

Thanks!

Marilyn

[Michael]

I'm not positive on this but I think this may be something that cannot be done through filters and would require a script.

[mjustman]

Ok, if it requires a script. I can write scripts (never tried writing one for Pocomail ... but a script run "before download" (if that's possible?) ought to be the equivalent of a filter?)

Again, can anybody supply the critical syntax for the date "filter"?

Thanks.

marilyn

[Eric]

Again, can anybody supply the critical syntax for the date "filter"?

Have a look here Marilyn.

[mjustman]

Eric: I'm not sure what you intend.

I read the article on bogus anti-spyware programs. Good source. Thanks.

But, in fact, I do have, and use "exclusively", SpyBot and Ad-Aware, AND I have thought that perhaps the "corrupted" email was in fact CLEANED (all attachments are in fact deleted from these things) ... but I'd STILL LIKE TO GET RID OF THAT EMAIL...even if it's just a "harmless remnant" of what came in.

So I still need a Pocomail filter or script....

And there are other things I might do with date filters...

Marilyn

[Eric]

Eric: I'm not sure what you intend.

I read the article on bogus anti-spyware programs. Good source. Thanks.

That's not the intended link, Marilyn, although that's a very informative site you've found in my sig.

So I still need a Pocomail filter or script....

I meant Pocomail Unofficial FAQ's, where you'll find a lot of stuff for scripts too.

In my previous post there was a link on the word here.

Hope that helps.

[mjustman]

Eric:
Thanks, and sorry...but...
Thanks for proper link. Sorry I missed the first instance; guess my screen is too bright and short link didn't catch my eye.

BUT I've just read through a good part of that unofficial FAQ and still find not one mention of "date". My problem concerns the fact that while dates come in in raw email as text (but is the syntax of THAT consistent???, and what if it is corrupted?) but I need to evaluate them as values. Even the filtering "form" offers "date" as a criterion, but I have no idea what I can say there to indicate that I want "year < 2006" for instance. And if I need a script to convert the text to values, so I can do the math, I will need to know a standard format for text dates. Do you know what the standard syntax is?

Thanks.

Marilyn

[Eric]

And if I need a script to convert the text to values, so I can do the math, I will need to know a standard format for text dates. Do you know what the standard syntax is?

Here's part of the Archive Old Mail script, so it may give you an idea how it works.

Code: Select all

{ Make sure message is appended to mailbox }
AppendToFile True
    { Get today's date }
GetDate $todaydate
    { Get message's date }
ReadHeader $messagedate "Date:" %message
    { Calculate the message age }
SubDays #diff $todaydate $messagedate

Not an expert on scripts, but I found the same command accessing the PocoScript Help inside Barca.

Sorry for not being able to help you any further with this.