Unregistering Mail

[Matt Armstrong]

David Relson <relson at osagesoftware.com> writes:

> The -S and -N options work by decrement token counts in one wordlist
> and incrementing the counts in the other wordlist.  One enterprising
> bogofilter user modified his copy so that -S and -N are unregister
> commands.  To duplicate the actions of the normal -S (remove from from
> ham and add to spam), he uses flags -N -s.  Our -N (remove from spam,
> add to ham) is his -S -n.  This is a pretty nifty solution with a big
> problem.  If the code gets changed, it will break everybody's scripts.

This is a very compelling interface, since each option does a single
thing.  Its easy to document and easy to understand.


> We could add a config file option
[...]

> Another solution would be to add an option that would make -S and -N
> "unregister only" actions.
[...]

Here is where I say that bogofilter is a young project and does not
yet deserve to accumulate cruft for the sake of backward
compatibility.  There is still time to go with the "right" solution.

I would minimize the concern over changing the meaning of the flags.
Everybody using bogofilter is an early adopter almost by definition,
and big fat warnings in the release notes should be enough.  Its not
like we're switching the -f and -i arguments to rm!  What's more,
accidental damage from misuse is minimal, since -S and -N are used to
correct mistakes and the mistake will still at least be removed from
the database.