+.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 /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.
+.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 valid
+.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 /usr/lib/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.
projects / unix-history / blobdiff