READMSG(1L)READMSG(1L)NAMEreadmsg - extract messages from a mail folder
SYNOPSISreadmsg [-anhp] [-f folder] [-w weedlist] [selection ...]
DESCRIPTION
Readmsg extracts selected mail messages from a mail folder. One help‐
ful use of the program is when you are composing a response to a mail
message in an external editor. In this case, you can run readmsg to
pull a copy of the original message into the editing buffer.
When you run readmsg from within elm (e.g. from a subshell escape or in
an external editor while composing a mail reply) it behaves a bit dif‐
ferently from when you run it directly (e.g. from a shell command
line). We will first describe its normal behavior, and then describe
how it is different when you run it under elm.
You tell readmsg which messages to extract with the selection argument.
There are a couple of possible different ways to specify the selection.
1. A lone ``*'' means select all messages in the mailbox.
2. A list of message numbers may be specified. Values of ``0'' and
``$'' in the list both mean the last message in the mailbox.
For example:
readmsg 1 3 0
extracts three messages from the folder: the first, the third,
and the last.
3. Finally, the selection may be some text to match. This will
select a mail message which exactly matches the specified text.
For example,
readmsg staff meeting
extracts the message which contains the words ``staff meeting.''
Note that it will not match a message containing ``Staff Meet‐
ing'' – the matching is case sensitive. Normally only the first
message which matches the pattern will be printed. The -a
option discussed in a moment changes this.
The -f flag indicates that you'd rather use the folder specified rather
than the default incoming mailbox. The specified folder can be a file‐
name or a specification such as ``=sentmail''.
The -w flag tailors the list of mail headers that are weeded and dis‐
played. Header weeding is discussed below.
The -h flag instructs the program to ignore the header weeding list,
and include the entire header of the matched message or messages when
displaying their text.
The -n flag instructs the program to ignore the header weeding list,
and exclude all headers. This is used mostly for extracting files
mailed and such.
The -p flag indicates that the program should put form-feeds (control-
L) between message headers.
The -a flag indicates that all messages which match the pattern speci‐
fied on the command line should be printed, not just the first. If a
pattern was not specified on the command line then this flag has no
effect.
When you run readmsg under elm (say in the context of an external edi‐
tor) the behavior will be different from that described above as fol‐
lows.
1. The default mail folder will be the folder you are currently
examining in elm and not necessarily your incoming mail folder.
2. You do not need to specify a selection on the command line. If
you omit the selection then readmsg will extract the message(s)
you have selected in Elm. If you have tagged any messages then
this would be all of the tagged messages, otherwise it would be
the message you are currently examining.
3. Normally the message numbers readmsg uses are in mailbox order.
When you call readmsg under elm and do not override the folder
selection with the -f option, then message numbers will be
sorted as they are displayed on the elm message index screen.
Normally, readmsg selects and displays certain headers from the mes‐
sage. By default, the list of selected headers includes:
· The ``Subject:'' header.
· The ``From:'' header.
· The ``To:'' header.
· The ``Cc:'' header.
· The ``Date:'' header.
· Any header starting with ``Apparently-''.
The header weeding may be changed with the -w option. The argument to
this option is a list of header names, separated by whitespace or com‐
mas. readmsg compares each header to the ones in this list, and if a
match is found the header is displayed. The list entries can contain
partial header names. For instance, an entry of ``From'' would match
both the ``From<SPACE>'' line at the top of the message, as well as any
``From:'' header. Matching is case insensitive. An underscore (``_'')
may be used to represent a space, so specifying ``From_'' will select
the ``From<SPACE>'' line but not the ``From:'' header. A list entry
may be preceded by an exclamation point to suppress the header. Thus,
a specification of ``!From_ From'' means about the same thing as
``From:''. When no header weeding options are specified, the default
action corresponds to:
readmsg-w "Subject: From: To: Cc: Apparently- Date:"
EXAMPLES
First off, to use this from within vi to include the text of the cur‐
rent message, you could use the command:
:r !readmsg
(as you hit the ':' the editor will put you at the bottom of the screen
with the ':' prompt). The space following ':r' is required.
Let's look at something more interesting, however;
Suppose you have the mail file;
From joe Jun 3 1986 4:45:30 MST
Subject: hello
Hey Guy! Wanta go out and have a milk this evening?
Joe
From john Jun 3 1986 4:48:20 MST
Subject: Dinner at Eight
From: John Dinley <xyz!john>
Remember you should show up about eight, okay?
- John D -
From xxzyz!cron Jun 3 1986 5:02:43 MST
Cannot connect to server: blob
Job 43243 deleted from queue.
The following commands will result in;
$ readmsg 2
[ display the second message, from John ]
$ readmsg
[ an error, unless we're calling from elm ]
$ readmsg BLOB
[ no match - case sensitive! ]
$ readmsg-h connect to server
[ displays third message, including headers ]
FILES
/usr/mail/<username> The incoming mail
$ELMSTATE Status information from elm
AUTHOR
Elm Development Group
SEE ALSOnewmail(1L), elm(1L)BUGS
The '*' metacharacter doesn't always work as expected!
Perhaps the pattern matching should be case insensitive?
It might be confusing that messages are sorted when running under elm
with the current folder, and in mailbox order for all other cases.
When readmsg is run standalone, messages may be truncated at lines
beginning with "From". This is not a problem when readmsg is spawned
under elm because the status information file created by elm says
exactly how long each message is.
BUG REPORTS TO
Bill Pemberton flash@virginia.edu
COPYRIGHTS
Copyright 1988-1995 by The USENET Community Trust
Derived from Elm 2.0, Copyright 1986, 1987 by Dave Taylor
USENET Community Trust Elm Version 2.5 READMSG(1L)
