Agent regular expression filter

[Brian]

I'm WAY out of practice with writing Agent filters. :( If I want to
clear out a newsgroup which has been flooded with messages which have
a subject line which is pure hexadecimal (plus a few non-alphanumeric
characters) why does a kill filter of

subject: (not {[g-z]})

not have the desired effect (I don't care about a few false
positives). I've sat and looked at that expression for about 15
minutes, but I just can't see what I'm missing. When applied to the
folder, it has zero effect, i.e. no messages are deleted.

Thanks,

Brian.

[Dennis Lee Bieber]

Post by Brian
I'm WAY out of practice with writing Agent filters. :( If I want to
clear out a newsgroup which has been flooded with messages which have
a subject line which is pure hexadecimal (plus a few non-alphanumeric
characters) why does a kill filter of
subject: (not {[g-z]})

From the help system:
"""
How to Include Regular Expressions in Filter Expressions

Anywhere a sequence of words to be matched can appear in a filter
expression, you can include a regular expression enclosed in {..} (curly
braces). Here's an example of a regular expression, combined with a
sequence of words to be matched, as well:

subject: (this is a test and {[0-9]+})

This example matches any subject containing the phrase "this is a test" AND
a regular expression consisting of any sequence of one or more digits.
"""

Your expression matches a subject that has

not followed by a single letter in the range g-z (note: if "not" is
an operator in the non-regex filter language, then you have a filter that
applies to anything that is not a single character in g-z)


So... Suggest trying (make it a test filter, before making it a real
delete filter)

subject: {^[0-9a-f]+$}

{ begin regular expression
^ match beginning of field
[0-9a-f] match any single character in that range (case insensitive)
+ match 1 or more of the preceding
$ match end of field
} end expression

[Brian]

On Mon, 13 Apr 2020 14:32:04 -0400, Dennis Lee Bieber

Post by Dennis Lee Bieber

Post by Brian
I'm WAY out of practice with writing Agent filters. :( If I want to
clear out a newsgroup which has been flooded with messages which have
a subject line which is pure hexadecimal (plus a few non-alphanumeric
characters) why does a kill filter of
subject: (not {[g-z]})

"""
How to Include Regular Expressions in Filter Expressions
Anywhere a sequence of words to be matched can appear in a filter
expression, you can include a regular expression enclosed in {..} (curly
braces). Here's an example of a regular expression, combined with a
subject: (this is a test and {[0-9]+})
This example matches any subject containing the phrase "this is a test" AND
a regular expression consisting of any sequence of one or more digits.
"""
Your expression matches a subject that has
not followed by a single letter in the range g-z (note: if "not" is
an operator in the non-regex filter language, then you have a filter that
applies to anything that is not a single character in g-z)
So... Suggest trying (make it a test filter, before making it a real
delete filter)
subject: {^[0-9a-f]+$}
{ begin regular expression
^ match beginning of field
[0-9a-f] match any single character in that range (case insensitive)
+ match 1 or more of the preceding
$ match end of field
} end expression

It gets a little more complicated because of the additional
non-alphanumerics (I just posted an example of an actual subject line
in another post). That's why I was trying to do it with a negation, it
seemed a far simpler expression.

Brian.

[Arthur T.]

Post by Brian
I'm WAY out of practice with writing Agent filters. :( If I want to
clear out a newsgroup which has been flooded with messages which have
a subject line which is pure hexadecimal (plus a few non-alphanumeric
characters) why does a kill filter of
subject: (not {[g-z]})
not have the desired effect (I don't care about a few false
positives).

I tried it as a global search, and it worked fine for me. I modified
it to r-z and it showed more. I know it's difficult without
retrieving the bodies, but can you copy-and-paste some of the subject
lines you expect to hit?

[Ralph Fox]

This post might be inappropriate. Click to display it.

[Brian]

Post by Ralph Fox

Post by Brian
I'm WAY out of practice with writing Agent filters. :( If I want to
clear out a newsgroup which has been flooded with messages which have
a subject line which is pure hexadecimal (plus a few non-alphanumeric
characters) why does a kill filter of
subject: (not {[g-z]})
not have the desired effect (I don't care about a few false
positives). I've sat and looked at that expression for about 15
minutes, but I just can't see what I'm missing. When applied to the
folder, it has zero effect, i.e. no messages are deleted.
Thanks,
Brian.

What is the group, so I can test with the actual subjects?

alt.binaries.dvd

Post by Ralph Fox
(a) Maybe the no match is due to the subjects starting with "Re: "?

Maybe some of them do (there are a LOT of them) but there are more
than enough which don't have the 'Re:' and were unaffected by the kill
filter.

Post by Ralph Fox
(b) Maybe there is more to the actual filter expression, such as
subject: (not {[g-z]}) and newsgroups: (alt.trolls.nasty)
Perhaps it is the other part of the filter expression which
does not work with "Apply filters to folder" vs. when getting
new headers (for example, filtering on the newsgroups header).

No. I posted the filter expression in its entirety.

Post by Ralph Fox
(c) If the "pure hexadecimal" is a file name before the extension,
does the file extension contain characters between g and z?

I posted the exact syntax of at least a substantial number of the
subject lines in another reply. It's clearly just an attempt to flood
the group, not a filename.

Brian.

[Ralph Fox]

Post by Brian

Post by Ralph Fox

Post by Brian
I'm WAY out of practice with writing Agent filters. :( If I want to
clear out a newsgroup which has been flooded with messages which have
a subject line which is pure hexadecimal (plus a few non-alphanumeric
characters) why does a kill filter of
subject: (not {[g-z]})
not have the desired effect (I don't care about a few false
positives). I've sat and looked at that expression for about 15
minutes, but I just can't see what I'm missing. When applied to the
folder, it has zero effect, i.e. no messages are deleted.
Thanks,
Brian.

What is the group, so I can test with the actual subjects?

alt.binaries.dvd

Your filter works when it is run on my computer.

Using Edit >> Find Global, I tested your filter expression on 4 days
worth of messages in alt.binaries.dvd. The filter matched 653857 out
of 654038 messages, leaving only 181 (joined) messages unmatched.

I then tried your filter in a new kill filter, checking the box
"Apply filters to folder immediately".

screen-shot: <Loading Image...>

The filter killed 653857 out of 654038 messages, leaving only 181
(joined) messages.


It could be that your kill filter is being masked by another filter of
equal or higher priority which matches the messages first.

* When you check "Apply filters to folder immediately", Agent applies
all your filters -- not only the one filter you re creating.
* Agent checks filters, from highest priority to lowest priority.
* Agent applies the actions from only the first filter which matches
(the filter with the highest priority).
* If you want your new filter not to be masked by other filters, set
its priority to be higher than any other filter.

[Brian]

Post by Ralph Fox

Post by Brian

Post by Ralph Fox

Post by Brian
I'm WAY out of practice with writing Agent filters. :( If I want to
clear out a newsgroup which has been flooded with messages which have
a subject line which is pure hexadecimal (plus a few non-alphanumeric
characters) why does a kill filter of
subject: (not {[g-z]})
not have the desired effect (I don't care about a few false
positives). I've sat and looked at that expression for about 15
minutes, but I just can't see what I'm missing. When applied to the
folder, it has zero effect, i.e. no messages are deleted.
Thanks,
Brian.

What is the group, so I can test with the actual subjects?

alt.binaries.dvd

Your filter works when it is run on my computer.
Using Edit >> Find Global, I tested your filter expression on 4 days
worth of messages in alt.binaries.dvd. The filter matched 653857 out
of 654038 messages, leaving only 181 (joined) messages unmatched.
I then tried your filter in a new kill filter, checking the box
"Apply filters to folder immediately".
screen-shot: <https://i.imgur.com/LGsE6tel.png>
The filter killed 653857 out of 654038 messages, leaving only 181
(joined) messages.
It could be that your kill filter is being masked by another filter of
equal or higher priority which matches the messages first.
* When you check "Apply filters to folder immediately", Agent applies
all your filters -- not only the one filter you re creating.
* Agent checks filters, from highest priority to lowest priority.
* Agent applies the actions from only the first filter which matches
(the filter with the highest priority).
* If you want your new filter not to be masked by other filters, set
its priority to be higher than any other filter.

It's the highest priority kill filter, Ralph. The only other filters
at a higher priority are three 'keep' filters which have some VERY
specific subject names in the filter. The chances of any of these
matching the messages in question would seem to me to be zero. An
example is

subject: {easwaran}

But, never let it be said that I'm unwilling to try something - I will
temporarily disable the three keep filters, run the filters against
the folder again, and report back.

Brian.

[Brian]

On Tue, 14 Apr 2020 08:47:20 -0400, Brian

Post by Brian

Post by Ralph Fox

Post by Brian

Post by Ralph Fox

Post by Brian
I'm WAY out of practice with writing Agent filters. :( If I want to
clear out a newsgroup which has been flooded with messages which have
a subject line which is pure hexadecimal (plus a few non-alphanumeric
characters) why does a kill filter of
subject: (not {[g-z]})
not have the desired effect (I don't care about a few false
positives). I've sat and looked at that expression for about 15
minutes, but I just can't see what I'm missing. When applied to the
folder, it has zero effect, i.e. no messages are deleted.
Thanks,
Brian.

What is the group, so I can test with the actual subjects?

alt.binaries.dvd

Your filter works when it is run on my computer.
Using Edit >> Find Global, I tested your filter expression on 4 days
worth of messages in alt.binaries.dvd. The filter matched 653857 out
of 654038 messages, leaving only 181 (joined) messages unmatched.
I then tried your filter in a new kill filter, checking the box
"Apply filters to folder immediately".
screen-shot: <https://i.imgur.com/LGsE6tel.png>
The filter killed 653857 out of 654038 messages, leaving only 181
(joined) messages.
It could be that your kill filter is being masked by another filter of
equal or higher priority which matches the messages first.
* When you check "Apply filters to folder immediately", Agent applies
all your filters -- not only the one filter you re creating.
* Agent checks filters, from highest priority to lowest priority.
* Agent applies the actions from only the first filter which matches
(the filter with the highest priority).
* If you want your new filter not to be masked by other filters, set
its priority to be higher than any other filter.

It's the highest priority kill filter, Ralph. The only other filters
at a higher priority are three 'keep' filters which have some VERY
specific subject names in the filter. The chances of any of these
matching the messages in question would seem to me to be zero. An
example is
subject: {easwaran}
But, never let it be said that I'm unwilling to try something - I will
temporarily disable the three keep filters, run the filters against
the folder again, and report back.

I should have added to this message that the three positive filters
are actually set to watch and keep, and despite my having applied all
the filters to all the folder, as you describe, none of the messages
in question show the watch or keep flags as having been set. If
disabling these three filters means that the kill filter now runs as
expected, it will only raise further questions... :( The three keep
filters do work as expected in some other groups, and none of my
filters are set to be group-specific, they're all global.


Brian.

[Brian]

On Mon, 13 Apr 2020 06:46:31 -0400, Brian

Post by Brian
I'm WAY out of practice with writing Agent filters. :( If I want to
clear out a newsgroup which has been flooded with messages which have
a subject line which is pure hexadecimal (plus a few non-alphanumeric
characters) why does a kill filter of
subject: (not {[g-z]})
not have the desired effect (I don't care about a few false
positives). I've sat and looked at that expression for about 15
minutes, but I just can't see what I'm missing. When applied to the
folder, it has zero effect, i.e. no messages are deleted.

Example subject line (in its entirety!) cut and pasted from group

{c8391e1c-4fff-47bc-a1cc-d5fc81c79d23}

I looked at a couple of screenfuls more messages, and they're all like
this - just hexadecimal with hyphens as separators and { and } as
terminators. Someone is obviously trying to flood the group so as to
make it unusable. There is no 'Re:' at the start of the subject.
That's why I hit on the idea of looking for any character between g
and z and killing the post if I didn't find one.

Brian.

[Brian]

On Mon, 13 Apr 2020 18:40:13 -0400, Brian

Post by Brian
On Mon, 13 Apr 2020 06:46:31 -0400, Brian

Post by Brian
I'm WAY out of practice with writing Agent filters. :( If I want to
clear out a newsgroup which has been flooded with messages which have
a subject line which is pure hexadecimal (plus a few non-alphanumeric
characters) why does a kill filter of
subject: (not {[g-z]})
not have the desired effect (I don't care about a few false
positives). I've sat and looked at that expression for about 15
minutes, but I just can't see what I'm missing. When applied to the
folder, it has zero effect, i.e. no messages are deleted.

Example subject line (in its entirety!) cut and pasted from group
{c8391e1c-4fff-47bc-a1cc-d5fc81c79d23}
I looked at a couple of screenfuls more messages, and they're all like
this - just hexadecimal with hyphens as separators and { and } as
terminators. Someone is obviously trying to flood the group so as to
make it unusable. There is no 'Re:' at the start of the subject.
That's why I hit on the idea of looking for any character between g
and z and killing the post if I didn't find one.

P.S. If anyone is in any doubt that at least a substantial number of
the rest of these posts follow the same format ({,8 hex,-,4 hex,-,4
hex,-,4 hex,-,12 hex,}) then I'll happily put a few screen shots on my
website and post a link here. I *do* recognise hexadecimal when I see
it, though! :)

Brian.

[Arthur Conan Doyle]

Post by Brian
Example subject line (in its entirety!) cut and pasted from group
{c8391e1c-4fff-47bc-a1cc-d5fc81c79d23}
I looked at a couple of screenfuls more messages, and they're all like
this - just hexadecimal with hyphens as separators and { and } as
terminators. Someone is obviously trying to flood the group so as to
make it unusable.

Not necessarily. Usenet has been "discovered" by a new generation of users. One
of the properties they particularly like is the relative anonymity of posting
and downloading. Properties that are particularly useful when posting and
retrieving copyrighted material such as movies and television programmes.

The actual material title is obfuscated by use of a random title in the subject
line, making it harder for the rights owner to identify the specific title. The
index and actual title can be maintained elsewhere by a third party at less
risk, since that information is not copyrighted.

[Dennis Lee Bieber]

Post by Brian
{c8391e1c-4fff-47bc-a1cc-d5fc81c79d23}

That looks very much like a GUID (or UUID)...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universally_unique_identifier
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4122#section-3

[Brian]

On Mon, 13 Apr 2020 21:45:51 -0400, Dennis Lee Bieber

Post by Dennis Lee Bieber

Post by Brian
{c8391e1c-4fff-47bc-a1cc-d5fc81c79d23}

That looks very much like a GUID (or UUID)...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universally_unique_identifier
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4122#section-3

So it does. I guess I'm showing my age... I'd still like to know why
the filter doesn't work, though, given the results of the tests I ran
using the filter as a search expression (see previous messages). Is
there some special representation of these subject lines and I'm just
looking at how Agent shows them?

Brian.

[Arthur T.]

Post by Brian
If I want to
clear out a newsgroup which has been flooded with messages which have
a subject line which is pure hexadecimal (plus a few non-alphanumeric
characters) why does a kill filter of
subject: (not {[g-z]})
not have the desired effect

Could you try that filter as a global search (in that one newsgroup)
*without* the "not"? Then copy-and-paste some of the spammy Subjects
that make it through? It certainly looks good.

[Brian]

Post by Arthur T.

Post by Brian
If I want to
clear out a newsgroup which has been flooded with messages which have
a subject line which is pure hexadecimal (plus a few non-alphanumeric
characters) why does a kill filter of
subject: (not {[g-z]})
not have the desired effect

Could you try that filter as a global search (in that one newsgroup)
*without* the "not"? Then copy-and-paste some of the spammy Subjects
that make it through? It certainly looks good.

Now I'm getting *really* confused. None of the messages made it
through - exact same filter expression as above minus the 'NOT'. It
begins to look like there's some flaw in the negation...?

Brian.

[Brian]

On Mon, 13 Apr 2020 21:36:05 -0400, Brian

Post by Brian

Post by Arthur T.

Post by Brian
If I want to
clear out a newsgroup which has been flooded with messages which have
a subject line which is pure hexadecimal (plus a few non-alphanumeric
characters) why does a kill filter of
subject: (not {[g-z]})
not have the desired effect

Could you try that filter as a global search (in that one newsgroup)
*without* the "not"? Then copy-and-paste some of the spammy Subjects
that make it through? It certainly looks good.

Now I'm getting *really* confused. None of the messages made it
through - exact same filter expression as above minus the 'NOT'. It
begins to look like there's some flaw in the negation...?

OK, so the obvious idea occurred to me after I made that post (hey,
it's getting late!) and I did a global search with the 'NOT' back in
place. Yep, found everything...

Post by Brian
Brian.

[Arthur T.]

Post by Brian
On Mon, 13 Apr 2020 21:36:05 -0400, Brian

Post by Brian

Post by Arthur T.

Post by Brian
If I want to
clear out a newsgroup which has been flooded with messages which have
a subject line which is pure hexadecimal (plus a few non-alphanumeric
characters) why does a kill filter of
subject: (not {[g-z]})
not have the desired effect

Could you try that filter as a global search (in that one newsgroup)
*without* the "not"? Then copy-and-paste some of the spammy Subjects
that make it through? It certainly looks good.

Now I'm getting *really* confused. None of the messages made it
through - exact same filter expression as above minus the 'NOT'. It
begins to look like there's some flaw in the negation...?

OK, so the obvious idea occurred to me after I made that post (hey,
it's getting late!) and I did a global search with the 'NOT' back in
place. Yep, found everything...

Well, that makes no sense (to me, anyway).

I tried a global search on this newsgroup with:
subject: ({[x-z]})
Many message were excluded, but *this* thread was among those found
("x" in "expression").

Admittedly, we're on very different versions of Agent, but it seems
unlikely that they'd screw up that badly (and that no one else
complained about it).

[Brian]

On Mon, 13 Apr 2020 06:46:31 -0400, Brian

Post by Brian
I'm WAY out of practice with writing Agent filters. :( If I want to
clear out a newsgroup which has been flooded with messages which have
a subject line which is pure hexadecimal (plus a few non-alphanumeric
characters) why does a kill filter of
subject: (not {[g-z]})
not have the desired effect (I don't care about a few false
positives). I've sat and looked at that expression for about 15
minutes, but I just can't see what I'm missing. When applied to the
folder, it has zero effect, i.e. no messages are deleted.

Damn, I don't believe this! I disabled the three watch and keep (i.e.
I have those options set) at the top of the filter list and now
suddenly the above filter started working as expected. OK, I have two
questions :-

1) If one of the three positive filters was working and thus
preventing the above kill filter from running, why were the watch and
keep flags not set on the messages I expected to be deleted?

2) HOW is one of my positive filters matching these other messages?
I'm going to take the step of *cutting and pasting* the filters into
this message (I can easily do that because these are in separate
copies of Agent). Here are the three positive filters, all three (as I
said) have watch and keep set.

subject: ((robinson and peter) or (leon and donna) or (freeling and
nicolas) or (crombie and deborah) or (hill and reginald) or (rendell
and ruth) or (mccall and smith and alexander) or (sjowall and wahloo)
or (van de wetering) or (shulman and martha) or (brett and simon) or
(hill and susan) or (simenon and georges) )


Subject: {easwaran}


subject: (asimov or (piers anthony) or clarke or eddings or donaldson
or freepascal or (free pascal) or lazarus)


Now how the hell is one of them matching the subject lines of the
messages I expected to be deleted?

The only things I can come up with, and they are pure conjecture on my
part, are

1) The first filter exceeds some kind of length or complexity limit. I
can try breaking it apart easily enough...

2) My setup is not standard. I'm running both copies of Agent (the one
I use for binary groups and this one) in separate CrossOver Office
bottles, hosted on a 64-bit Linux Mint system. I could understand if
Agent didn't work at all under this setup, but for it to (apparently)
work OK except for the filters being screwed up would be weird!


I don't really expect anybody to have an answer to all this, it just
makes no sense whatsoever to me at least, but I said I would report
back after I tried the test, and so I have...


Brian.

[Dennis Lee Bieber]

Post by Brian
Subject: {easwaran}

That filter essentially matches any subject with "easwaran" appearing
somewhere... The only thing using the regular expression {} gains you is
that they match within words, when the regular filters are full word
matches only.

Post by Brian
The only things I can come up with, and they are pure conjecture on my
part, are
1) The first filter exceeds some kind of length or complexity limit. I
can try breaking it apart easily enough...

Unlikely -- if there was a field length limit I'd expect you'd see
truncation when bringing the filter back up into the editor.

[Brian]

On Wed, 15 Apr 2020 12:36:23 -0400, Dennis Lee Bieber

Post by Dennis Lee Bieber

Post by Brian
Subject: {easwaran}

That filter essentially matches any subject with "easwaran" appearing
somewhere... The only thing using the regular expression {} gains you is
that they match within words, when the regular filters are full word
matches only.

Yes. That's precisely the intent of the filter. If Agent throws away
all non-alphanumerics before doing the match, then I agree with you
that the {} is superfluous. 'easwaran' is a sufficiently unusual
string of characters that the chances of false positives are very low.

Post by Dennis Lee Bieber

Post by Brian
The only things I can come up with, and they are pure conjecture on my
part, are
1) The first filter exceeds some kind of length or complexity limit. I
can try breaking it apart easily enough...

Unlikely -- if there was a field length limit I'd expect you'd see
truncation when bringing the filter back up into the editor.

I don't agree with that. Presumably the string is read from the edit
box and fed into a subroutine along with the current subject header.
If the truncation occurs *in the subroutine* for some reason, you
would not see an indication in the edit box.

Brian.

[Ralph Fox]

Post by Brian
Damn, I don't believe this! I disabled the three watch and keep (i.e.
I have those options set) at the top of the filter list and now
suddenly the above filter started working as expected. OK, I have two
questions :-
1) If one of the three positive filters was working and thus
preventing the above kill filter from running, why were the watch and
keep flags not set on the messages I expected to be deleted?
2) HOW is one of my positive filters matching these other messages?
I'm going to take the step of *cutting and pasting* the filters into
this message (I can easily do that because these are in separate
copies of Agent). Here are the three positive filters, all three (as I
said) have watch and keep set.
subject: ((robinson and peter) or (leon and donna) or (freeling and
nicolas) or (crombie and deborah) or (hill and reginald) or (rendell
and ruth) or (mccall and smith and alexander) or (sjowall and wahloo)
or (van de wetering) or (shulman and martha) or (brett and simon) or
(hill and susan) or (simenon and georges) )
Subject: {easwaran}
subject: (asimov or (piers anthony) or clarke or eddings or donaldson
or freepascal or (free pascal) or lazarus)

I tested your four filters together on my computer, using "Apply filters
to folder".
* The 3 watch filters at priority 900
* The kill filter at priority 800

Screen-shot: <Loading Image...>


With the same 4 days worth of messages in alt.binaries.dvd as before,

* The three watch filters did _not_ set flags on any of the messages.

* The kill filter killed 653857 out of 654038 messages, leaving only 181
(joined) messages.

Post by Brian
Now how the hell is one of them matching the subject lines of the
messages I expected to be deleted?

When I test here, your watch filters do _not_ match the subject lines of
messages to be deleted.

Post by Brian
The only things I can come up with, and they are pure conjecture on my
part, are
1) The first filter exceeds some kind of length or complexity limit. I
can try breaking it apart easily enough...
2) My setup is not standard. I'm running both copies of Agent (the one
I use for binary groups and this one) in separate CrossOver Office
bottles, hosted on a 64-bit Linux Mint system. I could understand if
Agent didn't work at all under this setup, but for it to (apparently)
work OK except for the filters being screwed up would be weird!

I would suspect that there is yet another filter involved.

Post by Brian
I don't really expect anybody to have an answer to all this, it just
makes no sense whatsoever to me at least, but I said I would report
back after I tried the test, and so I have...

At Tools >> Usenet Filters, what does the bar at the top of the
filters list say? Here, it says this:
Selected Filters: [All Actions] [Global + All Folders]

[Brian]

Post by Ralph Fox

Post by Brian
Damn, I don't believe this! I disabled the three watch and keep (i.e.
I have those options set) at the top of the filter list and now
suddenly the above filter started working as expected. OK, I have two
questions :-
1) If one of the three positive filters was working and thus
preventing the above kill filter from running, why were the watch and
keep flags not set on the messages I expected to be deleted?
2) HOW is one of my positive filters matching these other messages?
I'm going to take the step of *cutting and pasting* the filters into
this message (I can easily do that because these are in separate
copies of Agent). Here are the three positive filters, all three (as I
said) have watch and keep set.
subject: ((robinson and peter) or (leon and donna) or (freeling and
nicolas) or (crombie and deborah) or (hill and reginald) or (rendell
and ruth) or (mccall and smith and alexander) or (sjowall and wahloo)
or (van de wetering) or (shulman and martha) or (brett and simon) or
(hill and susan) or (simenon and georges) )
Subject: {easwaran}
subject: (asimov or (piers anthony) or clarke or eddings or donaldson
or freepascal or (free pascal) or lazarus)

I tested your four filters together on my computer, using "Apply filters
to folder".
* The 3 watch filters at priority 900
* The kill filter at priority 800
Screen-shot: <https://i.imgur.com/OicMgRz.png>
With the same 4 days worth of messages in alt.binaries.dvd as before,
* The three watch filters did _not_ set flags on any of the messages.
* The kill filter killed 653857 out of 654038 messages, leaving only 181
(joined) messages.

Post by Brian
Now how the hell is one of them matching the subject lines of the
messages I expected to be deleted?

When I test here, your watch filters do _not_ match the subject lines of
messages to be deleted.

Nor did they here, at least going by the fact that the watch and keep
flags were not set on all the messages. Which is what is making me
puzzled as to how disabling the three of them can make the kill
filters work!

Post by Ralph Fox

Post by Brian
The only things I can come up with, and they are pure conjecture on my
part, are
1) The first filter exceeds some kind of length or complexity limit. I
can try breaking it apart easily enough...
2) My setup is not standard. I'm running both copies of Agent (the one
I use for binary groups and this one) in separate CrossOver Office
bottles, hosted on a 64-bit Linux Mint system. I could understand if
Agent didn't work at all under this setup, but for it to (apparently)
work OK except for the filters being screwed up would be weird!

I would suspect that there is yet another filter involved.

Well, I have no idea where it is hiding - nor do I understand the
point I made above. Even if there is another filter which is somehow
invisible, I only disabled those three VISIBLE filters in order to get
the kill filters to work.

Post by Ralph Fox

Post by Brian
I don't really expect anybody to have an answer to all this, it just
makes no sense whatsoever to me at least, but I said I would report
back after I tried the test, and so I have...

At Tools >> Usenet Filters, what does the bar at the top of the
Selected Filters: [All Actions] [Global + All Folders]

Exactly the same.

Sorry for the delayed reply, BTW, had a bit of a crisis come up at
this end of things (no, NOT Covid-19 related, thankfully!) and I've
only just had time to look at newsgroups again.


Brian.