.\" Copyright (c) 1980 Regents of the University of California. .\" All rights reserved. The Berkeley software License Agreement .\" specifies the terms and conditions for redistribution. .\" .\" @(#)mail5.nr 6.1.1 (2.11BSD) 1996/10/24 .\" .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 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 \fB!\fP Used to preface a command to be executed by the shell. .ip \fB\-\fP 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 \fBPrint\fP Like .b print , but also print out ignored header fields. See also .b print and .b ignore . .ip \fBReply\fP 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 .b ~t and .b ~c 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. .ip \fBType\fP Identical to the .b Print command. .ip \fBalias\fP 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. .ip \fBalternates\fP If you have accounts on several machines, you may find it convenient to use the /etc/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. .ip \fBchdir\fP 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. .ip \fBcopy\fP 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. .ip \fBdelete\fP Deletes a list of messages. Deleted messages can be reclaimed with the .b undelete command. .ip \fBdp\fP or \fBdt\fP These commands delete the current message and print the next message. They are useful for quickly reading and disposing of mail. .ip \fBedit\fP 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 may be abbreviated to .b e . .ip \fBelse\fP 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 \fBendif\fP Marks the end of an .b if statement. .ip \fBexit\fP 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. .ip \fBfile\fP The same as .b folder . .ip \fBfolders\fP List the names of the folders in your folder directory. .ip \fBfolder\fP 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 .TS center; c c l a. Name Meaning _ # Previous file read % Your system mailbox %name \fIName\fP's system mailbox & Your ~/mbox file +folder A file in your folder directory .TE .)b .ip \fBfrom\fP The .b from command takes a list of messages and prints out the header lines for each one; hence .(l from joe .)l is the easy way to display all the message headers from \*(lqjoe.\*(rq .ip \fBheaders\fP When you start up .i Mail to read your mail, it lists the message headers that you have. These headers tell you who each message is from, when they were sent, how many lines and characters each message is, and the .q "Subject:" header field of each message, if present. In addition, .i Mail tags the message header of each message that has been the object of the .b preserve command with a .q P. Messages that have been .b saved or .b written are flagged with a .q *. Finally, .b deleted messages are not printed at all. If you wish to reprint the current list of message headers, you can do so with the .b headers command. The .b headers command (and thus the initial header listing) only lists the first so many message headers. The number of headers listed depends on the speed of your terminal. This can be overridden by specifying the number of headers you want with the .i window option. .i Mail maintains a notion of the current .q window into your messages for the purposes of printing headers. Use the .b z command to move forward and back a window. You can move .i Mail's notion of the current window directly to a particular message by using, for example, .(l headers 40 .)l to move .i Mail's attention to the messages around message 40. The .b headers command can be abbreviated to .b h . .ip \fBhelp\fP Print a brief and usually out of date help message about the commands in .i Mail . The .i man page for .i mail is usually more up-to-date than either the help message or this manual. .ip \fBhold\fP Arrange to hold a list of messages in the system mailbox, instead of moving them to the file .i mbox in your home directory. If you set the binary option .i hold , this will happen by default. .ip \fBif\fP Commands in your .q .mailrc file can be executed conditionally depending on whether you are sending or receiving mail with the .b if command. For example, you can do: .(l if receive \fIcommands\fP... endif .)l An .b else form is also available: .(l if send \fIcommands\fP... else \fIcommands\fP... endif .)l Note that the only allowed conditions are .b receive and .b send . .ip \fBignore\fP 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 \fBlist\fP List the vaild .i Mail commands. .. .ip \fBlocal\fP .. 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 \fBmail\fP 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. .ip \fBmbox\fP 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 \fBnext\fP 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. .ip \fBpreserve\fP Same as .b hold . Cause a list of messages to be held in your system mailbox when you quit. .ip \fBprint\fP Takes a message list and types out each message on the terminal. .ip \fBquit\fP Leave .i Mail and update the file, folder, or system mailbox your were reading. Messages that you have examined are marked as .q read and messages that existed when you started are marked as .q old. If you were editing your system mailbox and if you have set the binary option .i hold , all messages which have not been deleted, saved, or mboxed will be retained in your system mailbox. If you were editing your system mailbox and you did .i not have .i hold set, all messages which have not been deleted, saved, or preserved will be moved to the file .i mbox in your home directory. .ip \fBreply\fP or \fBrespond\fP 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 .b ~t and .b ~c 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. .ip \fBsave\fP It is often useful to be able to save messages on related topics in a file. The .b save command gives you ability to do this. The .b save command takes as argument a list of message numbers, followed by the name of the file on 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 .b save command can be abbreviated to .b s . 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. .ip \fBset\fP 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 Several options can be specified in a single .b set command. .ip \fBshell\fP 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 .ip \fBsource\fP 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. .ip \fBtop\fP The .b top command takes a message list and prints the first five lines of each addressed message. It may be abbreviated to .b to . 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. .ip \fBtype\fP Print a list of messages on your terminal. If you have set the option .i crt to a number and the total number of lines in the messages you are printing exceed that specified by .i crt , the messages will be printed by a terminal paging program such as .i more . .ip \fBundelete\fP The .b undelete command causes a message that had been deleted previously to regain its initial status. Only messages that have been deleted may be undeleted. This command may be abbreviated to .b u . .ip \fBunset\fP Reverse the action of setting a binary or valued option. .ip \fBvisual\fP 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. .ne 2v+\n(psu .sp \n(psu 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/ucb/ex VISUAL=/usr/ucb/vi .)l .ip \fBwrite\fP 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. .ip \fBz\fP .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 \fBEDITOR\fP 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 \fBSHELL\fP 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 \fBVISUAL\fP The valued option .q VISUAL defines the pathname of your screen editor for use in the .b visual command and ~v escape. A standard screen editor is used if you do not define one. .ip \fBappend\fP The .q append option is binary and causes messages saved in .i mbox to be appended to the end rather than prepended. Normally, .i Mail will put messages in .i 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 \fBask\fP .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 \fBaskcc\fP .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 \fBautoprint\fP .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 to quickly scanning and deleting messages in your mailbox. .ip \fBdebug\fP The binary option .q debug causes debugging information to be displayed. Use of this option is the same as useing the .ip \-d command line flag. .ip \fBdot\fP .q Dot is a binary option which, if set, causes .i Mail to interpret a period alone on a line as the terminator of a message you are sending. .ip \fBescape\fP 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 \fBfolder\fP 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 \fBhold\fP 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. .ip \fBignore\fP 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 \fBignoreeof\fP 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 \fBkeep\fP 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 /usr/spool/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 \fBkeepsave\fP 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 \fBmetoo\fP 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 \fBnoheader\fP 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 \fBnosave\fP 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 \fBquiet\fP 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 \fBrecord\fP 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 \fBscreen\fP 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 \fBsendmail\fP To alternate 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 \fBtoplines\fP 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 \fBverbose\fP The binary option "verbose" causes .i Mail to invoke sendmail with the .b \-v flag, which causes it to go into versbose 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.