V
Vanguard
Outlook 2002 SP-2
I have the following rule to check if the Subject header is blank:
Apply this rule after the message arrives
permanently delete it
except if the subject contains 'a' ... 'z' or '0' ... '9'
stop processing more rules
Microsoft has yet to provide regular expressions so the above regarding the
list of characters is shorthand. It actually is a bunch of ORs of every
alphabetic and numeric character. If the Subject header has no alphanumeric
characters, that message gets permanently deleted. If the sender uses other
characters, like a Subject of ~!#$%^&*()_+" then I still don't want it since
it has an unintelligible Subject header.
The above rule works as expected so I defined a similar rule to test when
the body of the message is blank. It is identical except it tests using
"except if the body contains" clause. However, this body-is-blank rule
misfires. Out of, say, a dozen messages in my Inbox, about 2 will get
triggered on and deleted. Those messages have LOTS of text in them so they
are *not* blank. When testing, I change the "permanently delete" to just
"delete" so they get moved into the Deleted Items folder from where I can
retrieve them to test again.
It is almost as though the "except if subject contains" clause checks on
characters but the "except if body contains" clause is checking on words.
In the mails on which the body-is-blank rule misfires, there is no use of
the word "a" or "I" or any single-character in the mail. There are lots of
words in the message but no single characters. So it is as if the rule is
looking for words that are single characters instead of seeing that the
specified characters are used within words.
I have the following rule to check if the Subject header is blank:
Apply this rule after the message arrives
permanently delete it
except if the subject contains 'a' ... 'z' or '0' ... '9'
stop processing more rules
Microsoft has yet to provide regular expressions so the above regarding the
list of characters is shorthand. It actually is a bunch of ORs of every
alphabetic and numeric character. If the Subject header has no alphanumeric
characters, that message gets permanently deleted. If the sender uses other
characters, like a Subject of ~!#$%^&*()_+" then I still don't want it since
it has an unintelligible Subject header.
The above rule works as expected so I defined a similar rule to test when
the body of the message is blank. It is identical except it tests using
"except if the body contains" clause. However, this body-is-blank rule
misfires. Out of, say, a dozen messages in my Inbox, about 2 will get
triggered on and deleted. Those messages have LOTS of text in them so they
are *not* blank. When testing, I change the "permanently delete" to just
"delete" so they get moved into the Deleted Items folder from where I can
retrieve them to test again.
It is almost as though the "except if subject contains" clause checks on
characters but the "except if body contains" clause is checking on words.
In the mails on which the body-is-blank rule misfires, there is no use of
the word "a" or "I" or any single-character in the mail. There are lots of
words in the message but no single characters. So it is as if the rule is
looking for words that are single characters instead of seeing that the
specified characters are used within words.