Re: [Evolution-hackers] Sieve application for filtering mail [was: Re: Evolution custom email message]

[Matthew Barnes <mbarnes redhat com>]

On Thu, 2014-03-27 at 09:12 -0400, Adam Tauno Williams wrote:
> FYI, in case you want to look at some working code; the Horde suite [a
> set of web applications] has a mail-filter front-end named Ingo that has
> very good SIEVE support.
> <https://github.com/horde/horde/tree/master/ingo/lib/Script/Sieve>

Thanks, that may prove quite useful.


> Wow. I have to say I have *never* seen a UI that parsed SIEVE.  Every
> interface I have seen lets you create mail filter rules and `compiles`
> them into SIEVE.  Personally I wouldn't view *reading* SIEVE to be all
> that critical;  I would just like to be able to set my rules and have
> them compiled and activated on the server.

I think we also want to allow revising existing SIEVE rules, which means
parsing a rule sufficiently to present it in an editing UI.

Otherwise there would be no allowance for typos or revisions; any change
would require deleting the old rule and forcing the user to recreate it
in the editor from scratch.

With the aid of a parser generator tool like bison, it shouldn't be that
difficult to generate an abstract syntax tree from a SIEVE rule.  I have
some experience with bison to lend.

Also, having a good language-independent abstract representation will be
key to integration, as it will have to accommodate both SIEVE rules and
Evolution's local S-Expression rules (assuming we keep that format).

Matthew Barnes