Introduction
************

This is the README for `qsf', a quick spam filter.  QSF uses a database of
"tokens" taken from previous emails to determine whether any given email is
likely to be spam or not.  If an email is miscategorised, simply send the
email back to QSF with the appropriate parameters to modify the database and
make it more accurate.

Note that `qsf' works well with either its own backend database or GDBM. 
GDBM is faster, but the builtin database reduces dependencies on other
libraries.  In special cases you can also use MySQL for the backend
database, but this can be harder to set up.

If you use the MySQL backend, "make test" will fail.  Read the documentation
in the "MYSQL BACKEND" part of the manual for information on how to use
`qsf' with MySQL.


Documentation
*************

A manual page is included in this distribution.  If you prefer plain text,
then look at `doc/quickref.txt' for a text version.


Compilation
***********

To compile the package, type "sh ./configure", which should generate a
Makefile for your system.  You may then type "make" to build everything.

See the file `doc/INSTALL' for more about the `configure' script.

Developers note that you can do "./configure --enable-debugging" to cause
debugging support to be built in.  Also note that doing "make index" will
generate an HTML code index (using "ctags" and "cproto"); this index lists
all files used, all functions defined, and all TODOs marked in the code.


Author
******

This package is copyright (C) 2003 Andrew Wood, and is being distributed
under the terms of the Artistic License and other licenses.  For more
details, see the file `doc/COPYING'.

You can contact me by email at andrew.wood@ivarch.com or by using the
contact form on my web page at http://www.ivarch.com/.

Suggestions and patches have been received from the following people:

  Tom Parker <http://www.bits.bris.ac.uk/palfrey/>
  Dr Kelly A. Parker
  Vesselin Mladenov <http://www.antipodes.bg/>
  Glyn Faulkner

The `qsf' home page is at:

  http://www.ivarch.com/programs/qsf.shtml

The latest version can always be found here.

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