Using the ZetaSpamAssassin Wrapper in a real-world Application

• Download source files and demo project - 1.21 MB

Introduction

(This article is a follow-up to my article "A C# Wrapper for the SpamAssassin Protocol".)

In this article, I will show you a web-application that checks whether given texts contain spam or no spam by using SpamAssassin, a strong and popular backend-system for doing the actual checks.

In addition, you'll find a ready-to-use web service that easily enables you to include spam-checking functionality in arbitrary applications.

See www.zeta-software.de/ZetaSpamChecker for a live demo.

The Web Application

The web application is a GUI to the web service (described below) and consists of a single textbox where you can enter text. After clicking the "Check now" button, the text is sent through the SpamChecker class to the SpamAssassin server for checking.

If the SpamAssassin server decides that the text is spam, the following information is shown:

If the message seems to contain no spam, the following information is shown:

Currently the application has no further functionality. I will add new functions when the web service is enhanced, too.

The Web Service

The web service currently contains two functions:

• IsSpam - Simple check whether a given text contains spam or no spam.
• CheckSpam - Advanced check whether a given text contains spam or no spam. Returns the detected spam level and the threshold of the server.

Currently no further functions are included. Thanks to your suggestions I plan to add functions for explicitly telling the server that a certain message is spam or no spam.

Installation

The installation requirements are the same as those described in the article "A C# Wrapper for the SpamAssassin Protocol".

Ready-to-use Web Service on our Servers

If you are lazy (every software developer is lazy, I guess) or if it is impossible for you to set up the required infrastructure, then you can access the web service I set up on our web server for using in my own applications:

• www.zeta-software.de/ZetaSpamChecker contains a running demo of the web application.
• www.zeta-software.de/ZetaSpamChecker/SpamCheckerService.asmx contains the web service. Add this URL as a Web Reference inside Visual Studio to consume the web service.

Conclusion

In this article, I shortly introduced you to a web application and a web service that is based on the C# classes I developed for communicating with a SpamAssassin server.

The version introduced here is just the beginning. I will add more functions as I find the time and the ideas. Since I do use the web service in our own applications, you can rely on the constant improvement of the web service and the underlying classes.

In addition, I do need your feedback, questions, bug reports, improvements, suggestions, tips, etc. Please post them in the comments section at the end of this article!

History

• 2006-02-18
• First version of the article
• 2006-02-18
• Please also see the original article "A C# Wrapper for the SpamAssassin Protocol" for which this article is a follow-up.