when i did a python setup.py install, i got this error:

christopher-isaiah-funs-imac-g5:~/desktop/code wwjd2525$ python setup.py install [...] error: /System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.3/bin/ sb_bnfilter.py: Permission denied

Any idea what can I do to get around it? I'm really new in all this. =\

A normal user doesn't have permission to write to /System/Library. You could: 1. Do "sudo python setup.py install" (and give it your administrator password when it asks), if you are fine with adding the spambayes package to the system-wide Python installation (the build script will output what goes where, so you could save that ("sudo python setup.py install > install.log") if you wanted to be sure you could remove things later. 2. Install things elsewhere; this would be particularly good if you're likely to use other Python packages in the future, and would rather keep the system clean and keep third-party things in (e.g.) your home folder. "python setup.py install --help" gives you options; from memory you want something like "python setup.py install --root /Users/{username/" to base things in your home directory. You'll then have to tell Python where things can be found, by setting the environment variable PYTHONPATH to include that location. (Ask if you want more specifics about this). 3. You can leave the files wherever they are, and just tell Python where they are via the PYTHONPATH environment variable (again, ask if you want specifics). This is certainly the least disruptive, since you can then just delete the folder and everything is gone.

2. Also, I tried running a script that was provided in the package, called sb_mailsort.py. I did a python sb_mailsort.py -s 19602.elmx (where 19602.elmx) is the e-mail I'm trying to classify,

I expect you will have trouble trying to use elmx files, as they're not standard mbox files (which Mail 1.x used, I believe). They are simple to parse, however. It would be no trouble to add handling emlx files to the scripts if you'd like that.

and I got this

Traceback (most recent call last): File "sb_mailsort.py", line 187, in ? main() File "sb_mailsort.py", line 181, in main print_message_score(msg, open(msg)) File "sb_mailsort.py", line 141, in print_message_score bayes = CdbClassifier(open(DB_FILE, 'rb')) IOError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/Users/ wwjd2525/.spambayes/wordprobs.cdb'

Is this due to the fact that I've not installed my spambayes properly?

What were you trying to use sb_mailsort.py for? IIRC it works with CDB databases and Maildir mailboxes; I'm not sure if it's really used much by anyone. Sticking with the regular scripts is probably easiest (see below).

3. Lastly, (I really appreciate whoever who answers these questions) is there python module that specifically tokens a mail and tells me how many ham and spam words are in there?

The sb_filter script takes a message (or mbox or MH file) and outputs the message(s) with an "X-Spambayes-Classification" header, which will have a value of "ham", "spam", or "unsure". You can turn on options to have other headers, such as the evidence (tokens) found/ used, and so forth. Is that what you're after? If you want to just tokenize the message, then you'll have to use a custom Python script, e.g.:

...

...

from spambayes.tokenizer import tokenize print list(tokenize(message_as_string))

Likewise, if you want the tokens and their scores:

...

...

from spambayes.tokenizer import tokenize from spambayes.storage import open_storage c = open_storage("~/.hammiedb", "dbm") score, tokens = c.spamprob(tokenize(message_as_string), True)

[all untested, but it should be right]

How do I train my sb using ham and spam corpuses without disturbing any settings on my computer.

How do you get your mail? From the reference to emlx files, I presume you're using Mail. Are you connecting with Mail to one or more POP servers? One or more IMAP servers? Or something more unix'y, like using fetchmail? (For POP3, then using sb_server.py (a POP3 proxy) is the best idea, for IMAP, then sb_imapfilter.py, for unix'y things, probably sb_mboxtrain.py and sb_filter.py). =Tony.Meyer -- Please always include the list (spambayes at python.org) in your replies (reply-all), and please don't send me personal mail about SpamBayes. http://www.massey.ac.nz/~tameyer/writing/reply_all.html explains this.