Batch Filter additions?

[gardenzombie]

Does anyone know how to batch-add a whole funk-locker full of filters? For example, let's say I want to filter, either deny or accept, for about 1000 bands. Do I really have to add each one manually in the filter dialog? I think the filters are in XML format, no? If so - has anyone created a script or tool to, say, parse a text/csv/etc document with a bunch of items, and automatically populate the correct filter list?

[nzzz]

Build as few well thought out Regular Expressions as possible.
Using too many filters just slows you down.

RegExBuddy is a great way to learn, build and test before you add.

[gardenzombie]

I hear ya - and thanks very much for the response - but this is mainly for filtering out =many= unwanted person-names.

For example - if I have a newsgroup that lists a short Biography of every recording artist, and the group retains around 300,000 post entries ... I'd like to not have to read through that many names, when, for example, I know I'll never want to see the bio for "Prince" or "Ella Fitzgerald" (just examples - I've got nothing against those two artists).

This is an ongoing, growing, filter list. I had hundreds of entries in the filter, all manually added. Then I lost the filter list, and am slowly recreating it. However, I'd rather find a way to add multiple entries in one shot, rather than adding them one at a time.

[Quade]

He's right about performance. You'll eventutually find newsbin slowing down to the point it's unusable. You're better off selecting the files you don't want and just hitting "Shift-Delete" to permenantly delete them from the DB or RV2 files (depending on your version).

Filtering's great for finding things you want, not so hot for trying to filter all of usenet.

[gardenzombie]

I understand your point fully. However, neither yours nor the previous response addresses my original question, which was whether there was a way to batch-add entries.


What I'm filtering isn't the issue - but rather how to add the filters I'm going to use. I do, however, truly appreciate your condescending remark about filtering all of usenet.

[richy99]

the filters are now stored in a db3 file rather than xml, there is no facility to batch import

[Quade]

If you know SQL you can add filters pretty easily.

[gardenzombie]

Ah, great, thanks.

[bobkoure]

If you go to the SqLite web site, there are some free utilities you can download - or if you're comfortable with writing code, there are Sqlite "connectors". For instance, when I'm writing something where I care more about implementation time than execution time, I use Python, which is easy. In that environment, I'd use pysqlite for easy access to sqlite dbs

To get a notion of the schema NBP is using, download sqlite3 and try the following command, which will list the contents.
sqlite3 "filters.db3" "SELECT FL_FilterName,FL_FilterText FROM FilterList x, FilterMatchSubjects y WHERE x.FL_FilterId = y.FL_FilterId UNION SELECT FL_FilterName,FL_FilterText FROM FilterList x, FilterMatchFiles y WHERE x.FL_FilterId = y.FL_FilterId;"
Note that sqlite3.exe and filters.db need to be in the same directory for this to work.

It seems like a batch import would be straightforward to build. Just use the windows "ini-file" format, which python and perl and vb have built in parsers for (well, in perl, it's tacked on, but so is everything else). I asked some while back (when I didn't have a couple of deadlines bearing down on me) about interest in such a utility. Interest was basically zero, so I built the easiest thing that satisfied my own needs, which was a batch file that uses the above statement to list filters.db contents.

newsgroup that lists a short Biography of every recording artist

What newsgroup might that be? Don't answer unless there's some non-copyrighted info in there, so as not to get yourself in trouble. But a NG like that might actually prompt me to write something that looks for all the artists I have CDs for.