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@(#)mail5.nr 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/8/93
.bp .sh 1 "Additional features" .pp This section describes some additional commands useful for reading your mail, setting options, and handling lists of messages. .sh 2 "Message lists" .pp Several .i Mail commands accept a list of messages as an argument. Along with .b type and .b delete , described in section 2, there is the .b from command, which prints the message headers associated with the message list passed to it. The .b from command is particularly useful in conjunction with some of the message list features described below. .pp A .i "message list" consists of a list of message numbers, ranges, and names, separated by spaces or tabs. Message numbers may be either decimal numbers, which directly specify messages, or one of the special characters .q \(ua .q "." or .q "$" to specify the first relevant, current, or last relevant message, respectively. .i Relevant here means, for most commands .q "not deleted" and .q "deleted" for the .b undelete command. .pp A range of messages consists of two message numbers (of the form described in the previous paragraph) separated by a dash. Thus, to print the first four messages, use .(l type 1-4 .)l and to print all the messages from the current message to the last message, use .(l type .-$ .)l .pp A .i name is a user name. The user names given in the message list are collected together and each message selected by other means is checked to make sure it was sent by one of the named users. If the message consists entirely of user names, then every message sent by one of those users that is .i relevant (in the sense described earlier) is selected. Thus, to print every message sent to you by .q root, do .(l type root .)l .pp As a shorthand notation, you can specify simply .q * to get every .i relevant (same sense) message. Thus, .(l type * .)l prints all undeleted messages, .(l delete * .)l deletes all undeleted messages, and .(l undelete * .)l undeletes all deleted messages. .pp You can search for the presence of a word in subject lines with .b / . For example, to print the headers of all messages that contain the word .q PASCAL, do: .(l from /pascal .)l Note that subject searching ignores upper/lower case differences. .sh 2 "List of commands" .pp This section describes all the .i Mail commands available when receiving mail. .ip "- " The .rb - command goes to the previous message and prints it. The .rb - command may be given a decimal number .i n as an argument, in which case the .i n th previous message is gone to and printed. .ip "? " Prints a brief summary of commands. .ip "! " Used to preface a command to be executed by the shell. .ip "Print " Like .b print , but also print out ignored header fields. See also print, ignore and retain. Print can be abbreviated to P. .ip "Reply or Respond " Note the capital R in the name. Frame a reply to a one or more messages. The reply (or replies if you are using this on multiple messages) will be sent ONLY to the person who sent you the message (respectively, the set of people who sent the messages you are replying to). You can add people using the ~t, ~c and ~b tilde escapes. The subject in your reply is formed by prefacing the subject in the original message with .q "Re:" unless it already began thus. If the original message included a .q "reply-to" header field, the reply will go .i only to the recipient named by .q "reply-to." You type in your message using the same conventions available to you through the .b mail command. The .b Reply command is especially useful for replying to messages that were sent to enormous distribution groups when you really just want to send a message to the originator. Use it often. Reply (and Respond) can be abbreviated to R. .ip "Type " Identical to the .b Print command. Type can be abbreviated to T. .ip "alias " Define a name to stand for a set of other names. This is used when you want to send messages to a certain group of people and want to avoid retyping their names. For example .(l alias project john sue willie kathryn .)l creates an alias .i project which expands to the four people John, Sue, Willie, and Kathryn. If no arguments are given, all currently-defined aliases are printed. If one argument is given, that alias is printed (if it exists). Alias can be abbreviated to a. .ip "alternates " If you have accounts on several machines, you may find it convenient to use the /usr/lib/aliases on all the machines except one to direct your mail to a single account. The .b alternates command is used to inform .i Mail that each of these other addresses is really .i you . .i Alternates takes a list of user names and remembers that they are all actually you. When you .b reply to messages that were sent to one of these alternate names, .i Mail will not bother to send a copy of the message to this other address (which would simply be directed back to you by the alias mechanism). If .i alternates is given no argument, it lists the current set of alternate names. .b Alternates is usually used in the .mailrc file. Alternates can be abbreviated to alt. .ip "chdir " The .b chdir command allows you to change your current directory. .b Chdir takes a single argument, which is taken to be the pathname of the directory to change to. If no argument is given, .b chdir changes to your home directory. Chdir can be abbreviated to c. .ip "copy " The .b copy command does the same thing that .b save does, except that it does not mark the messages it is used on for deletion when you quit. Copy can be abbreviated to co. .ip "delete " Deletes a list of messages. Deleted messages can be reclaimed with the .b undelete command. Delete can be abbreviated to d. .ip "dp or dt " These commands delete the current message and print the next message. They are useful for quickly reading and disposing of mail. If there is no next message, mail says ``at EOF.'' .ip "edit " To edit individual messages using the text editor, the .b edit command is provided. The .b edit command takes a list of messages as described under the .b type command and processes each by writing it into the file Message\c .i x where .i x is the message number being edited and executing the text editor on it. When you have edited the message to your satisfaction, write the message out and quit, upon which .i Mail will read the message back and remove the file. .b Edit can be abbreviated to .b e . .ip "else " Marks the end of the then-part of an .b if statement and the beginning of the part to take effect if the condition of the .b if statement is false. .ip "endif " Marks the end of an .b if statement. .ip "exit or xit " Leave .i Mail without updating the system mailbox or the file your were reading. Thus, if you accidentally delete several messages, you can use .b exit to avoid scrambling your mailbox. Exit can be abbreviated to ex or x. .ip "file " The same as .b folder . File can be abbreviated to fi. .ip "folders " List the names of the folders in your folder directory. .ip "folder " The .b folder command switches to a new mail file or folder. With no arguments, it tells you which file you are currently reading. If you give it an argument, it will write out changes (such as deletions) you have made in the current file and read the new file. Some special conventions are recognized for the name: .(b
| Name Meaning |
| # Previous file read |
| % Your system mailbox |
| %name Name's system mailbox |
| & Your ~/mbox file |
| +folder A file in your folder directory |
Add the list of header fields named to the
.i "ignore list" .
Header fields in the ignore list are not printed on your
terminal when you print a message. This allows you to suppress
printing of certain machine-generated header fields, such as
.i Via
which are not usually of interest. The
.b Type
and
.b Print
commands can be used to print a message in its entirety, including
ignored fields.
If
.b ignore
is executed with no arguments, it lists the current set of ignored fields.
.ip "list "
List the valid
.i Mail
commands.
List can be abbreviated to l.
.ip local
Define a list of local names for this host. This command is useful
when the host is known by more than one name. Names in the list
may be qualified be the domain of the host. The first name on the local
list is the
.i distinguished
name of the host.
The names on the local list are used by
.i Mail
to decide which addresses are local to the host.
For example:
.(l
local ucbarpa.BERKELEY.ARPA arpa.BERKELEY.ARPA \\
arpavax.BERKELEY.ARPA r.BERKELEY.ARPA \\
ucb-arpa.ARPA
.)l
From this list we see that
.i "fred@ucbarpa.BERKELEY.ARPA",
.i "harold@arpa.BERKELEY",
and
.i "larry@r"
are all addresses of users on the local host.
The
.b local
command is usually not used be general users since it is designed for
local configuration; it is usually found in the file /etc/mail.rc.
.ip "mail "
Send mail to one or more people. If you have the
.i ask
option set,
.i Mail
will prompt you for a subject to your message. Then you
can type in your message, using tilde escapes as described in
section 4 to edit, print, or modify your message. To signal your
satisfaction with the message and send it, type control-d at the
beginning of a line, or a . alone on a line if you set the option
.i dot .
To abort the message, type two interrupt characters (\s-2RUBOUT\s0
by default) in a row or use the
.b ~q
escape.
The mail command can be abbreviated to m.
.ip "mbox "
Indicate that a list of messages be sent to
.i mbox
in your home directory when you quit. This is the default
action for messages if you do
.i not
have the
.i hold
option set.
.ip "next or + "
The
.b next
command goes to the next message and types it. If given a message list,
.b next
goes to the first such message and types it. Thus,
.(l
next root
.)l
goes to the next message sent by
.q root
and types it. The
.b next
command can be abbreviated to simply a newline, which means that one
can go to and type a message by simply giving its message number or
one of the magic characters
.q "^"
.q "."
or
.q "$".
Thus,
.(l
.
.)l
prints the current message and
.(l
4
.)l
prints message 4, as described previously.
Next can be abbreviated to n.
.ip "preserve "
Same as
.b hold .
Cause a list of messages to be held in your system mailbox when you quit.
Preserve can be abbreviated to pre.
.ip "print "
Print the specified messages. If the
.b crt
variable is set, messages longer than the number of lines it indicates
are paged through the command specified by the PAGER variable.
The print command can be abbreviated to p.
.ip "quit "
Terminates the session, saving all undeleted, unsaved and unwritten messages
in the user's mbox file in their login directory
(messages marked as having been read), preserving all
messages marked with hold or preserve or never referenced
in their system mailbox.
Any messages that were deleted, saved, written or saved to mbox are
removed from their system mailbox.
If new mail has arrived during the session, the message
``You have new mail'' is given. If given while editing a mailbox file
with the -f flag, then the edit file is rewritten.
A return to the Shell is effected, unless the rewrite of edit file fails,
in which case the user can escape with the exit command.
Quit can be abbreviated to q.
.ip "reply or respond "
Frame a reply to a single message.
The reply will be sent to the
person who sent you the message (to which you are replying), plus all
the people who received the original message, except you. You can
add people using the ~t, ~c and ~b
tilde escapes. The subject in your reply is formed by prefacing the
subject in the original message with
.q "Re:"
unless it already began thus.
If the original message included a
.q "reply-to"
header field, the reply will go
.i only
to the recipient named by
.q "reply-to."
You type in your message using the same conventions available to you
through the
.b mail
command.
The reply (and respond) command can be abbreviated to r.
.ip "retain "
Add the list of header fields named to the retained list.
Only the header fields in the retain list
are shown on your terminal when you print a message.
All other header fields are suppressed.
The
.b Type
and
.b Print
commands can be used to print a message in its entirety.
If
.b retain
is executed with no arguments, it lists the current set of
retained fields.
.ip "save "
It is often useful to be able to save messages on related topics
in a file. The
.b save
command gives you the ability to do this. The
.b save
command takes as an argument a list of message numbers, followed by
the name of the file in which to save the messages. The messages
are appended to the named file, thus allowing one to keep several
messages in the file, stored in the order they were put there.
The filename in quotes, followed by the line
count and character count is echoed on the user's terminal.
An example of the
.b save
command relative to our running example is:
.(l
s 1 2 tuitionmail
.)l
.b Saved
messages are not automatically saved in
.i mbox
at quit time, nor are they selected by the
.b next
command described above, unless explicitly specified.
Save can be abbreviated to s.
.ip "set "
Set an option or give an option a value. Used to customize
.i Mail .
Section 5.3 contains a list of the options. Options can be
.i binary ,
in which case they are
.i on
or
.i off ,
or
.i valued .
To set a binary option
.i option
.i on ,
do
.(l
set option
.)l
To give the valued option
.i option
the value
.i value ,
do
.(l
set option=value
.)l
There must be no space before or after the ``='' sign.
If no arguments are given, all variable values are printed.
Several options can be specified in a single
.b set
command.
Set can be abbreviated to se.
.ip "shell "
The
.b shell
command allows you to
escape to the shell.
.b Shell
invokes an interactive shell and allows you to type commands to it.
When you leave the shell, you will return to
.i Mail .
The shell used is a default assumed by
.i Mail ;
you can override this default by setting the valued option
.q SHELL,
eg:
.(l
set SHELL=/bin/csh
.)l
Shell can be abbreviated to sh.
.ip "size "
Takes a message list and prints out the size in characters of each
message.
.ip "source "
The
.b source
command reads
.i mail
commands from a file. It is useful when you are trying to fix your
.q .mailrc
file and you need to re-read it.
Source can be abbreviated to so.
.ip "top "
The
.b top
command takes a message list and prints the first five lines
of each addressed message.
If you wish, you can change the number of lines that
.b top
prints out by setting the valued option
.q "toplines."
On a CRT terminal,
.(l
set toplines=10
.)l
might be preferred.
Top can be abbreviated to to.
.ip "type "
Same as print.
Takes a message list and types out each message on the terminal.
The type command can be abbreviated to t.
.ip "undelete \"
Takes a message list and marks each message as not
being deleted.
Undelete can be abbreviated to u.
.ip "unread "
Takes a message list and marks each message as
.i not
having been read.
Unread can be abbreviated to U.
.ip "unset "
Takes a list of option names and discards their remembered values;
the inverse of set .
.ip "visual "
It is often useful to be able to invoke one of two editors,
based on the type of terminal one is using. To invoke
a display oriented editor, you can use the
.b visual
command. The operation of the
.b visual
command is otherwise identical to that of the
.b edit
command.
Both the
.b edit
and
.b visual
commands assume some default text editors. These default editors
can be overridden by the valued options
.q EDITOR
and
.q VISUAL
for the standard and screen editors. You might want to do:
.(l
set EDITOR=/usr/bin/ex VISUAL=/usr/bin/vi
.)l
Visual can be abbreviated to v.
.ip "write "
The
.b save
command always writes the entire message, including the headers,
into the file. If you want to write just the message itself, you
can use the
.b write
command. The
.b write
command has the same syntax as the
.b save
command, and can be abbreviated to simply
.b w .
Thus, we could write the second message by doing:
.(l
w 2 file.c
.)l
As suggested by this example, the
.b write
command is useful for such tasks as sending and receiving
source program text over the message system.
The filename in quotes, followed by the line
count and character count is echoed on the user's terminal.
.ip "z "
.i Mail
presents message headers in windowfuls as described under
the
.b headers
command.
You can move
.i Mail's
attention forward to the next window by giving the
.(l
z+
.)l
command. Analogously, you can move to the previous window with:
.(l
z-
.)l
.sh 2 "Custom options"
.pp
Throughout this manual, we have seen examples of binary and valued options.
This section describes each of the options in alphabetical order, including
some that you have not seen yet.
To avoid confusion, please note that the options are either
all lower case letters or all upper case letters. When I start a sentence
such as:
.q "Ask"
causes
.i Mail
to prompt you for a subject header,
I am only capitalizing
.q ask
as a courtesy to English.
.ip "EDITOR "
The valued option
.q EDITOR
defines the pathname of the text editor to be used in the
.b edit
command and ~e. If not defined, a standard editor is used.
.ip "PAGER "
Pathname of the program to use for paginating output when
it exceeds crt lines.
A default paginator is used if this option is not defined.
.ip "SHELL "
The valued option
.q SHELL
gives the path name of your shell. This shell is used for the
.b !
command and ~! escape. In addition, this shell expands
file names with shell metacharacters like * and ? in them.
.ip "VISUAL "
The valued option
.q VISUAL
defines the pathname of the screen editor to be used in the
.b visual
command
and ~v escape. A standard screen editor is used if you do not define one.
.ip "append "
The
.q append
option is binary and
causes messages saved in
.i mbox
to be appended to the end rather than prepended.
Normally, Mail will put messages in mbox
in the same order that the system puts messages in your system mailbox.
By setting
.q append,
you are requesting that
.i mbox
be appended to regardless. It is in any event quicker to append.
.ip "ask "
.q "Ask"
is a binary option which
causes
.i Mail
to prompt you for the subject of each message you send.
If you respond with simply a newline, no subject field will be sent.
.ip "askcc "
.q Askcc
is a binary option which
causes you to be prompted for additional carbon copy recipients at the
end of each message. Responding with a newline shows your
satisfaction with the current list.
.ip "autoprint "
.q Autoprint
is a binary option which
causes the
.b delete
command to behave like
.b dp
\*- thus, after deleting a message, the next one will be typed
automatically. This is useful when quickly scanning and deleting
messages in your mailbox.
.ip "crt "
The valued option
.q crt
is used as a threshold to determine how long a message must
be before
.b PAGER
is used to read it.
.ip "debug "
The binary option
.q debug
causes debugging information to be displayed. Use of this
option is the same as using the -d command line flag.
.ip "dot "
.q Dot
is a binary option which, if set, causes
.i Mail
to interpret a period alone on a line as the terminator
of the message you are sending.
.ip "escape "
To allow you to change the escape character used when sending
mail, you can set the valued option
.q escape.
Only the first character of the
.q escape
option is used, and it must be doubled if it is to appear as
the first character of a line of your message. If you change your escape
character, then ~ loses all its special meaning, and need no longer be doubled
at the beginning of a line.
.ip "folder "
The name of the directory to use for storing folders of messages.
If this name begins with a `/'
.i Mail
considers it to be an absolute pathname; otherwise, the folder directory
is found relative to your home directory.
.ip "hold "
The binary option
.q hold
causes messages that have been read but not manually dealt with
to be held in the system mailbox. This prevents such messages from
being automatically swept into your mbox file.
.ip "ignore "
The binary option
.q ignore
causes \s-2RUBOUT\s0 characters from your terminal to be ignored and echoed
as @'s while you are sending mail. \s-2RUBOUT\s0 characters retain their
original meaning in
.i Mail
command mode.
Setting the
.q ignore
option is equivalent to supplying the
.b -i
flag on the command line as described in section 6.
.ip "ignoreeof "
An option related to
.q dot
is
.q ignoreeof
which makes
.i Mail
refuse to accept a control-d as the end of a message.
.q Ignoreeof
also applies to
.i Mail
command mode.
.ip "keep "
The
.q keep
option causes
.i Mail
to truncate your system mailbox instead of deleting it when it
is empty. This is useful if you elect to protect your mailbox, which
you would do with the shell command:
.(l
chmod 600 /var/mail/yourname
.)l
where
.i yourname
is your login name. If you do not do this, anyone can probably read
your mail, although people usually don't.
.ip "keepsave "
When you
.b save
a message,
.i Mail
usually discards it when you
.b quit .
To retain all saved messages, set the
.q keepsave
option.
.ip "metoo "
When sending mail to an alias,
.i Mail
makes sure that if you are included in the alias, that mail will not
be sent to you. This is useful if a single alias is being used by
all members of the group. If however, you wish to receive a copy of
all the messages you send to the alias, you can set the binary option
.q metoo.
.ip "noheader "
The binary option
.q noheader
suppresses the printing of the version and headers when
.i Mail
is first invoked. Setting this option is the same as using
.b -N
on the command line.
.ip "nosave "
Normally,
when you abort a message with two \s-2RUBOUTs\s0,
.i Mail
copies the partial letter to the file
.q dead.letter
in your home directory. Setting the binary option
.q nosave
prevents this.
.ip "Replyall "
Reverses the sense of
.i reply
and
.i Reply
commands.
.ip "quiet "
The binary option
.q quiet
suppresses the printing of the version when
.i Mail
is first invoked,
as well as printing the for example
.q "Message 4:"
from the
.b type
command.
.ip "record "
If you love to keep records, then the
valued option
.q record
can be set to the name of a file to save your outgoing mail.
Each new message you send is appended to the end of the file.
.ip "screen "
When
.i Mail
initially prints the message headers, it determines the number to
print by looking at the speed of your terminal. The faster your
terminal, the more it prints.
The valued option
.q screen
overrides this calculation and
specifies how many message headers you want printed.
This number is also used for scrolling with the
.b z
command.
.ip "sendmail "
To use an alternate mail delivery system, set the
.q sendmail
option to the full pathname of the program to use. Note: this is not
for everyone! Most people should use the default delivery system.
.ip "toplines "
The valued option
.q toplines
defines the number of lines that the
.q top
command will print out instead of the default five lines.
.ip "verbose "
The binary option "verbose" causes
.i Mail
to invoke sendmail with the
.b -v
flag, which causes it to go into verbose mode and announce expansion
of aliases, etc. Setting the "verbose" option is equivalent to
invoking
.i Mail
with the
.b -v
flag as described in section 6.