Content-type: text/html Man page of msh

msh

Section: User Commands (1)
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NAME

msh - MH shell (only available within the message handling system, mh)  

SYNOPSIS

msh [-help] [-prompt string] [file]


 

OPTIONS

Prints a list of the valid options for this command. Sets the prompt for msh. If the string you specify includes white space, you must enclose it in double quotes ("). If you do not specify this option, the default prompt is (msh).

The following defaults are used by msh:

file defaults to ./msgbox -prompt (msh)


 

DESCRIPTION

The command msh is an interactive program that implements a subset of the normal MH commands operating on a single file in packf format. That is, msh is used to read a file that contains a number of messages, as opposed to the standard MH style of reading a number of files, each file being a separate message in a folder.

The chief advantage of msh is that, unlike the normal MH style, it allows a file to have more than one message in it. In addition, msh can be used on other files, such as message archives which have been packed using packf.

When invoked, msh reads the named file, and enters a command loop. You can type most of the normal MH commands. The syntax and semantics of these commands typed to msh are identical to their MH counterparts. In cases where the nature of msh would be inconsistent with the way MH works (for example, specifying a +folder with some commands), msh will duly inform you. The commands that msh currently supports are: ali burst comp dist folder forw inc mark mhmail msgchk next packf pick prev refile repl rmm scan send show sortm whatnow whom

In addition, msh has a help command which gives a brief overview of all the msh options. To terminate msh, either type <CTRL/D>, or use the quit command. If the file is writable and has been modified, then using quit will ask you if the file should be updated.

A redirection facility is supported by msh. Commands may be followed by one of the following standard symbols: Open an interprocess channel; connect output to another command. Write output to file. Append output to file.

If file starts with a tilde (~), then a C-shell-like expansion takes place. Note that commands are interpreted by sh(1).

When parsing commands to the left of any redirection symbol, msh will honor the backslash (\) as the quote next-character symbol, and double quotes (") as quote-word delimiters. All other input tokens are separated by white space (spaces and tabs).

You may wish to use an alternative profile for the commands that msh executes; see mh_profile(4) for details of the $MH environment variable.
 

RESTRICTIONS

The msh shell is not the C-shell, and a lot of the facilities provided by the latter are not present in the former. In particular, msh does not support back-quoting, history substitutions, variable substitutions, or alias substitutions.

msh does not understand back-quoting. The only effective way to use pick inside msh is to always use the seq select option. If you add the following line to your .mh_profile, pick will work equally well from both the shell and msh:

pick: -seq select -list

There is a strict limit of messages per file in packf format which msh can handle. Usually, this limit is 1000 messages.
 

PROFILE COMPONENTS

Path: To determine your Mail directory

Msg-Protect: To set protections when creating a new file

fileproc: Program to file messages

showproc: Program to show messages
 

FILES

The user profile. The system customization file.
 

SEE ALSO

csh(1), packf(1), sh(1), mh_profile(4)


 

Index

NAME
SYNOPSIS
OPTIONS
DESCRIPTION
RESTRICTIONS
PROFILE COMPONENTS
FILES
SEE ALSO

This document was created by man2html, using the manual pages.
Time: 02:43:04 GMT, October 02, 2010