On Thu, 2013-01-10 at 15:59 +0100, Tom Hendrikx wrote:
> Since EX_TOOBIG is not really a temporary condition, I'm not sure if
> that condition and the semantics of -X from the patch actually helps.
>
> I'm thinking that it might be better to have a switch with the semantics
> 'Change all temporary errors to EX_TEMPFAIL' which would change most of
> the named exit codes in the man page into EX_TEMPFAIL, except when the
> message should be simply passed through (effectively only EX_TOOBIG).
>
> This would do for integration as documented in the bug:
> - spamc without special switch: exitcode indicates succes (0) or failure (1)
> - spamc -<new>: exitcode indicates succes (0), failure (1) or retry (75)
> - spamc -x: always raw exitcode
>
> But I guess it depends largely on the setup and the sysadmins opinion
> whether 'addressee unknown' is a temporary condition, so there is
> another exception to be handled...
>
It seems to me that the set of replies as currently linked to spamc
options would do a near-prefect job with two minor tweaks:
(1) remove the EX_TOOBIG kludge from --no-safe-fallback so it does
what it says on ythe tin
(2) use the --exitcode behavior as the default in place of
--no-safe-fallback
The manpage needs to say that --no-safe-fallback should be used during
testing and explain that, although it catches more errors, it should
not be used for production because it treats EX_TOOBIG as an error
rather than a warning.
Personal opinion: the best approach would be to stick with
--no-safe-fallback after removing the EX_TOOBIG kludge and for the
calling script/code to make more detailed exit code checks. However, I
also realise this change would break a lot of installations, which is
why I'm suggesting making --exitcode the default in place of
--no-safe-fallback.
Martin
