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MMAAIILL RREEFFEERREENNCCEE MMAANNUUAALL _K_u_r_t _S_h_o_e_n_s Revised by _C_r_a_i_g _L_e_r_e_s and _M_a_r_k _A_n_d_r_e_w_s Version 5.5 June 25, 1998 11.. IInnttrroodduuccttiioonn _M_a_i_l provides a simple and friendly environment for sending and receiving mail. It divides incoming mail into its constituent messages and allows the user to deal with them in any order. In addition, it provides a set of _e_d- like commands for manipulating messages and sending mail. _M_a_i_l offers the user simple editing capabilities to ease the composition of outgoing messages, as well as providing the ability to define and send to names which address groups of users. Finally, _M_a_i_l is able to send and receive messages across such networks as the ARPANET, UUCP, and Berkeley net- work. This document describes how to use the _M_a_i_l program to send and receive messages. The reader is not assumed to be familiar with other message handling systems, but should be familiar with the UNIX1 shell, the text editor, and some of the common UNIX commands. "The UNIX Programmer's Manual," "An Introduction to Csh," and "Text Editing with Ex and Vi" can be consulted for more information on these topics. ____________________ 1 UNIX is a trademark of Bell Laboratories. UUSSDD::77--22 MMaaiill RReeffeerreennccee MMaannuuaall Here is how messages are handled: the mail system accepts incoming _m_e_s_s_a_g_e_s for you from other people and col- lects them in a file, called your _s_y_s_t_e_m _m_a_i_l_b_o_x. When you login, the system notifies you if there are any messages waiting in your system mailbox. If you are a _c_s_h user, you will be notified when new mail arrives if you inform the shell of the location of your mailbox. On version 7 sys- tems, your system mailbox is located in the directory /usr/spool/mail in a file with your login name. If your login name is "sam," then you can make _c_s_h notify you of new mail by including the following line in your .cshrc file: set mail=/usr/spool/mail/sam When you read your mail using _M_a_i_l, it reads your system mailbox and separates that file into the individual messages that have been sent to you. You can then read, reply to, delete, or save these messages. Each message is marked with its author and the date they sent it. MMaaiill RReeffeerreennccee MMaannuuaall UUSSDD::77--33 22.. CCoommmmoonn uussaaggee The _M_a_i_l command has two distinct usages, according to whether one wants to send or receive mail. Sending mail is simple: to send a message to a user whose login name is, say, "root," use the shell command: % Mail root then type your message. When you reach the end of the mes- sage, type an EOT (control-d) at the beginning of a line, which will cause _M_a_i_l to echo "EOT" and return you to the Shell. When the user you sent mail to next logs in, he will receive the message: You have mail. to alert him to the existence of your message. If, while you are composing the message you decide that you do not wish to send it after all, you can abort the let- ter with a RUBOUT. Typing a single RUBOUT causes _M_a_i_l to print (Interrupt -- one more to kill letter) Typing a second RUBOUT causes _M_a_i_l to save your partial let- ter on the file "dead.letter" in your home directory and abort the letter. Once you have sent mail to someone, there is no way to undo the act, so be careful. The message your recipient reads will consist of the message you typed, preceded by a line telling who sent the message (your login name) and the date and time it was sent. If you want to send the same message to several other people, you can list their login names on the command line. Thus, % Mail sam bob john Tuition fees are due next Friday. Don't forget!! <Control-d> EOT % will send the reminder to sam, bob, and john. If, when you log in, you see the message, You have mail. you can read the mail by typing simply: UUSSDD::77--44 MMaaiill RReeffeerreennccee MMaannuuaall % Mail _M_a_i_l will respond by typing its version number and date and then listing the messages you have waiting. Then it will type a prompt and await your command. The messages are assigned numbers starting with 1 -- you refer to the mes- sages with these numbers. _M_a_i_l keeps track of which mes- sages are _n_e_w (have been sent since you last read your mail) and _r_e_a_d (have been read by you). New messages have an NN next to them in the header listing and old, but unread mes- sages have a UU next to them. _M_a_i_l keeps track of new/old and read/unread messages by putting a header field called "Status" into your messages. To look at a specific message, use the ttyyppee command, which may be abbreviated to simply tt. For example, if you had the following messages: N 1 root Wed Sep 21 09:21 "Tuition fees" N 2 sam Tue Sep 20 22:55 you could examine the first message by giving the command: type 1 which might cause _M_a_i_l to respond with, for example: Message 1: From root Wed Sep 21 09:21:45 1978 Subject: Tuition fees Status: R Tuition fees are due next Wednesday. Don't forget!! Many _M_a_i_l commands that operate on messages take a message number as an argument like the ttyyppee command. For these com- mands, there is a notion of a current message. When you enter the _M_a_i_l program, the current message is initially the first one. Thus, you can often omit the message number and use, for example, t to type the current message. As a further shorthand, you can type a message by simply giving its message number. Hence, 1 would type the first message. MMaaiill RReeffeerreennccee MMaannuuaall UUSSDD::77--55 Frequently, it is useful to read the messages in your mailbox in order, one after another. You can read the next message in _M_a_i_l by simply typing a newline. As a special case, you can type a newline as your first command to _M_a_i_l to type the first message. If, after typing a message, you wish to immediately send a reply, you can do so with the rreeppllyy command. RReeppllyy, like ttyyppee, takes a message number as an argument. _M_a_i_l then begins a message addressed to the user who sent you the mes- sage. You may then type in your letter in reply, followed by a <control-d> at the beginning of a line, as before. _M_a_i_l will type EOT, then type the ampersand prompt to indi- cate its readiness to accept another command. In our exam- ple, if, after typing the first message, you wished to reply to it, you might give the command: reply _M_a_i_l responds by typing: To: root Subject: Re: Tuition fees and waiting for you to enter your letter. You are now in the message collection mode described at the beginning of this section and _M_a_i_l will gather up your message up to a control-d. Note that it copies the subject header from the original message. This is useful in that correspondence about a particular matter will tend to retain the same sub- ject heading, making it easy to recognize. If there are other header fields in the message, the information found will also be used. For example, if the letter had a "To:" header listing several recipients, _M_a_i_l would arrange to send your replay to the same people as well. Similarly, if the original message contained a "Cc:" (carbon copies to) field, _M_a_i_l would send your reply to _t_h_o_s_e users, too. _M_a_i_l is careful, though, not too send the message to _y_o_u, even if you appear in the "To:" or "Cc:" field, unless you ask to be included explicitly. See section 4 for more details. After typing in your letter, the dialog with _M_a_i_l might look like the following: reply To: root Subject: Tuition fees Thanks for the reminder EOT & UUSSDD::77--66 MMaaiill RReeffeerreennccee MMaannuuaall The rreeppllyy command is especially useful for sustaining extended conversations over the message system, with other "listening" users receiving copies of the conversation. The rreeppllyy command can be abbreviated to rr. Sometimes you will receive a message that has been sent to several people and wish to reply _o_n_l_y to the person who sent it. RReeppllyy with a capital RR replies to a message, but sends a copy to the sender only. If you wish, while reading your mail, to send a message to someone, but not as a reply to one of your messages, you can send the message directly with the mmaaiill command, which takes as arguments the names of the recipients you wish to send to. For example, to send a message to "frank," you would do: mail frank This is to confirm our meeting next Friday at 4. EOT & The mmaaiill command can be abbreviated to mm. Normally, each message you receive is saved in the file _m_b_o_x in your login directory at the time you leave _M_a_i_l. Often, however, you will not want to save a particular mes- sage you have received because it is only of passing inter- est. To avoid saving a message in _m_b_o_x you can delete it using the ddeelleettee command. In our example, delete 1 will prevent _M_a_i_l from saving message 1 (from root) in _m_b_o_x. In addition to not saving deleted messages, _M_a_i_l will not let you type them, either. The effect is to make the mes- sage disappear altogether, along with its number. The ddeelleettee command can be abbreviated to simply dd. Many features of _M_a_i_l can be tailored to your liking with the sseett command. The sseett command has two forms, depending on whether you are setting a _b_i_n_a_r_y option or a _v_a_l_u_e_d option. Binary options are either on or off. For example, the "ask" option informs _M_a_i_l that each time you send a message, you want it to prompt you for a subject header, to be included in the message. To set the "ask" option, you would type set ask Another useful _M_a_i_l option is "hold." Unless told oth- erwise, _M_a_i_l moves the messages from your system mailbox to MMaaiill RReeffeerreennccee MMaannuuaall UUSSDD::77--77 the file _m_b_o_x in your home directory when you leave _M_a_i_l. If you want _M_a_i_l to keep your letters in the system mailbox instead, you can set the "hold" option. Valued options are values which _M_a_i_l uses to adapt to your tastes. For example, the "SHELL" option tells _M_a_i_l which shell you like to use, and is specified by set SHELL=/bin/csh for example. Note that no spaces are allowed in "SHELL=/bin/csh." A complete list of the _M_a_i_l options appears in section 5. Another important valued option is "crt." If you use a fast video terminal, you will find that when you print long messages, they fly by too quickly for you to read them. With the "crt" option, you can make _M_a_i_l print any message larger than a given number of lines by sending it through a paging program. This program is specified by the valued option PPAAGGEERR. If PPAAGGEERR is not set, a default paginator is used. For example, most CRT users with 24-line screens should do: set crt=24 to paginate messages that will not fit on their screens. In the default state, _m_o_r_e (default paginator) prints a screen- ful of information, then types --More--. Type a space to see the next screenful. Another adaptation to user needs that _M_a_i_l provides is that of _a_l_i_a_s_e_s. An alias is simply a name which stands for one or more real user names. _M_a_i_l sent to an alias is really sent to the list of real users associated with it. For example, an alias can be defined for the members of a project, so that you can send mail to the whole project by sending mail to just a single name. The aalliiaass command in _M_a_i_l defines an alias. Suppose that the users in a project are named Sam, Sally, Steve, and Susan. To define an alias called "project" for them, you would use the _M_a_i_l command: alias project sam sally steve susan The aalliiaass command can also be used to provide a convenient name for someone whose user name is inconvenient. For exam- ple, if a user named "Bob Anderson" had the login name "anderson,"" you might want to use: alias bob anderson so that you could send mail to the shorter name, "bob." UUSSDD::77--88 MMaaiill RReeffeerreennccee MMaannuuaall While the aalliiaass and sseett commands allow you to customize _M_a_i_l, they have the drawback that they must be retyped each time you enter _M_a_i_l. To make them more convenient to use, _M_a_i_l always looks for two files when it is invoked. It first reads a system wide file "/usr/lib/Mail.rc," then a user specific file, ".mailrc," which is found in the user's home directory. The system wide file is maintained by the system administrator and contains sseett commands that are applicable to all users of the system. The ".mailrc" file is usually used by each user to set options the way he likes and define individual aliases. For example, my .mailrc file looks like this: set ask nosave SHELL=/bin/csh As you can see, it is possible to set many options in the same sseett command. The "nosave" option is described in sec- tion 5. Mail aliasing is implemented at the system-wide level by the mail delivery system _s_e_n_d_m_a_i_l. These aliases are stored in the file /usr/lib/aliases and are accessible to all users of the system. The lines in /usr/lib/aliases are of the form: alias: name1, name2, name3 where _a_l_i_a_s is the mailing list name and the _n_a_m_e_i are the members of the list. Long lists can be continued onto the next line by starting the next line with a space or tab. Remember that you must execute the shell command _n_e_w_a_l_i_a_s_e_s after editing /usr/lib/aliases since the delivery system uses an indexed file created by _n_e_w_a_l_i_a_s_e_s. We have seen that _M_a_i_l can be invoked with command line arguments which are people to send the message to, or with no arguments to read mail. Specifying the --ff flag on the command line causes _M_a_i_l to read messages from a file other than your system mailbox. For example, if you have a col- lection of messages in the file "letters" you can use _M_a_i_l to read them with: % Mail -f letters You can use all the _M_a_i_l commands described in this document to examine, modify, or delete messages from your "letters" file, which will be rewritten when you leave _M_a_i_l with the qquuiitt command described below. Since mail that you read is saved in the file _m_b_o_x in your home directory by default, you can read _m_b_o_x in your home directory by using simply MMaaiill RReeffeerreennccee MMaannuuaall UUSSDD::77--99 % Mail -f Normally, messages that you examine using the ttyyppee com- mand are saved in the file "mbox" in your home directory if you leave _M_a_i_l with the qquuiitt command described below. If you wish to retain a message in your system mailbox you can use the pprreesseerrvvee command to tell _M_a_i_l to leave it there. The pprreesseerrvvee command accepts a list of message numbers, just like ttyyppee and may be abbreviated to pprree. Messages in your system mailbox that you do not examine are normally retained in your system mailbox automatically. If you wish to have such a message saved in _m_b_o_x without reading it, you may use the mmbbooxx command to have them so saved. For example, mbox 2 in our example would cause the second message (from sam) to be saved in _m_b_o_x when the qquuiitt command is executed. MMbbooxx is also the way to direct messages to your _m_b_o_x file if you have set the "hold" option described above. MMbbooxx can be abbreviated to mmbb. When you have perused all the messages of interest, you can leave _M_a_i_l with the qquuiitt command, which saves the mes- sages you have typed but not deleted in the file _m_b_o_x in your login directory. Deleted messages are discarded irre- trievably, and messages left untouched are preserved in your system mailbox so that you will see them the next time you type: % Mail The qquuiitt command can be abbreviated to simply qq. If you wish for some reason to leave _M_a_i_l quickly with- out altering either your system mailbox or _m_b_o_x, you can type the xx command (short for eexxiitt), which will immediately return you to the Shell without changing anything. If, instead, you want to execute a Shell command with- out leaving _M_a_i_l, you can type the command preceded by an exclamation point, just as in the text editor. Thus, for instance: !date will print the current date without leaving _M_a_i_l. Finally, the hheellpp command is available to print out a brief summary of the _M_a_i_l commands, using only the single UUSSDD::77--1100 MMaaiill RReeffeerreennccee MMaannuuaall character command abbreviations. 33.. MMaaiinnttaaiinniinngg ffoollddeerrss _M_a_i_l includes a simple facility for maintaining groups of messages together in folders. This section describes this facility. To use the folder facility, you must tell _M_a_i_l where you wish to keep your folders. Each folder of messages will be a single file. For convenience, all of your folders are kept in a single directory of your choosing. To tell _M_a_i_l where your folder directory is, put a line of the form set folder=letters in your _._m_a_i_l_r_c file. If, as in the example above, your folder directory does not begin with a `/,' _M_a_i_l will assume that your folder directory is to be found starting from your home directory. Thus, if your home directory is //uussrr//ppeerrssoonn the above example told _M_a_i_l to find your folder directory in //uussrr//ppeerrssoonn//lleetttteerrss. Anywhere a file name is expected, you can use a folder name, preceded with `+.' For example, to put a message into a folder with the ssaavvee command, you can use: save +classwork to save the current message in the _c_l_a_s_s_w_o_r_k folder. If the _c_l_a_s_s_w_o_r_k folder does not yet exist, it will be created. Note that messages which are saved with the ssaavvee command are automatically removed from your system mailbox. In order to make a copy of a message in a folder with- out causing that message to be removed from your system mailbox, use the ccooppyy command, which is identical in all other respects to the ssaavvee command. For example, copy +classwork copies the current message into the _c_l_a_s_s_w_o_r_k folder and leaves a copy in your system mailbox. The ffoollddeerr command can be used to direct _M_a_i_l to the contents of a different folder. For example, folder +classwork directs _M_a_i_l to read the contents of the _c_l_a_s_s_w_o_r_k folder. All of the commands that you can use on your system mailbox are also applicable to folders, including ttyyppee, ddeelleettee, and rreeppllyy. To inquire which folder you are currently editing, MMaaiill RReeffeerreennccee MMaannuuaall UUSSDD::77--1111 use simply: folder To list your current set of folders, use the ffoollddeerrss command. To start _M_a_i_l reading one of your folders, you can use the --ff option described in section 2. For example: % Mail -f +classwork will cause _M_a_i_l to read your _c_l_a_s_s_w_o_r_k folder without look- ing at your system mailbox. UUSSDD::77--1122 MMaaiill RReeffeerreennccee MMaannuuaall 44.. MMoorree aabboouutt sseennddiinngg mmaaiill 44..11.. TTiillddee eessccaappeess While typing in a message to be sent to others, it is often useful to be able to invoke the text editor on the partial message, print the message, execute a shell command, or do some other auxiliary function. _M_a_i_l provides these capabilities through _t_i_l_d_e _e_s_c_a_p_e_s, which consist of a tilde (~) at the beginning of a line, followed by a single charac- ter which indicates the function to be performed. For exam- ple, to print the text of the message so far, use: ~p which will print a line of dashes, the recipients of your message, and the text of the message so far. Since _M_a_i_l requires two consecutive RUBOUT's to abort a letter, you can use a single RUBOUT to abort the output of ~p or any other ~ escape without killing your letter. If you are dissatisfied with the message as it stands, you can invoke the text editor on it using the escape ~e which causes the message to be copied into a temporary file and an instance of the editor to be spawned. After modify- ing the message to your satisfaction, write it out and quit the editor. _M_a_i_l will respond by typing (continue) after which you may continue typing text which will be appended to your message, or type <control-d> to end the message. A standard text editor is provided by _M_a_i_l. You can override this default by setting the valued option "EDI- TOR" to something else. For example, you might prefer: set EDITOR=/usr/ucb/ex Many systems offer a screen editor as an alternative to the standard text editor, such as the _v_i editor from UC Berkeley. To use the screen, or _v_i_s_u_a_l editor, on your cur- rent message, you can use the escape, ~v ~v works like ~e, except that the screen editor is invoked instead. A default screen editor is defined by _M_a_i_l. If it does not suit you, you can set the valued option "VISUAL" to the path name of a different editor. MMaaiill RReeffeerreennccee MMaannuuaall UUSSDD::77--1133 It is often useful to be able to include the contents of some file in your message; the escape ~r filename is provided for this purpose, and causes the named file to be appended to your current message. _M_a_i_l complains if the file doesn't exist or can't be read. If the read is suc- cessful, the number of lines and characters appended to your message is printed, after which you may continue appending text. The filename may contain shell metacharacters like * and ? which are expanded according to the conventions of your shell. As a special case of ~r, the escape ~d reads in the file "dead.letter" in your home directory. This is often useful since _M_a_i_l copies the text of your mes- sage there when you abort a message with RUBOUT. To save the current text of your message on a file you may use the ~w filename escape. _M_a_i_l will print out the number of lines and charac- ters written to the file, after which you may continue appending text to your message. Shell metacharacters may be used in the filename, as in ~r and are expanded with the conventions of your shell. If you are sending mail from within _M_a_i_l_'_s command mode you can read a message sent to you into the message you are constructing with the escape: ~m 4 which will read message 4 into the current message, shifted right by one tab stop. You can name any non-deleted mes- sage, or list of messages. Messages can also be forwarded without shifting by a tab stop with ~f. This is the usual way to forward a message. If, in the process of composing a message, you decide to add additional people to the list of message recipients, you can do so with the escape ~t name1 name2 ... You may name as few or many additional recipients as you wish. Note that the users originally on the recipient list UUSSDD::77--1144 MMaaiill RReeffeerreennccee MMaannuuaall will still receive the message; you cannot remove someone from the recipient list with ~t. If you wish, you can associate a subject with your mes- sage by using the escape ~s Arbitrary string of text which replaces any previous subject with "Arbitrary string of text." The subject, if given, is sent near the top of the message prefixed with "Subject:" You can see what the message will look like by using ~p. For political reasons, one occasionally prefers to list certain people as recipients of carbon copies of a message rather than direct recipients. The escape ~c name1 name2 ... adds the named people to the "Cc:" list, similar to ~t. Again, you can execute ~p to see what the message will look like. The escape ~b name1 name2 ... adds the named people to the "Cc:" list, but does not make the names visible in the "Cc:" line ("blind" carbon copy). The recipients of the message together constitute the "To:" field, the subject the "Subject:" field, and the car- bon copies the "Cc:" field. If you wish to edit these in ways impossible with the ~t, ~s, ~c and ~b escapes, you can use the escape ~h which prints "To:" followed by the current list of recipi- ents and leaves the cursor (or printhead) at the end of the line. If you type in ordinary characters, they are appended to the end of the current list of recipients. You can also use your erase character to erase back into the list of recipients, or your kill character to erase them altogether. Thus, for example, if your erase and kill characters are the standard (on printing terminals) # and @ symbols, ~h To: root kurt####bill would change the initial recipients "root kurt" to "root bill." When you type a newline, _M_a_i_l advances to the "Sub- ject:" field, where the same rules apply. Another newline MMaaiill RReeffeerreennccee MMaannuuaall UUSSDD::77--1155 brings you to the "Cc:" field, which may be edited in the same fashion. Another newline brings you to the "Bcc:" ("blind" carbon copy) field, which follows the same rules as the "Cc:" field. Another newline leaves you appending text to the end of your message. You can use ~p to print the current text of the header fields and the body of the mes- sage. To effect a temporary escape to the shell, the escape ~!command is used, which executes _c_o_m_m_a_n_d and returns you to mailing mode without altering the text of your message. If you wish, instead, to filter the body of your message through a shell command, then you can use ~|command which pipes your message through the command and uses the output as the new text of your message. If the command pro- duces no output, _M_a_i_l assumes that something is amiss and retains the old version of your message. A frequently-used filter is the command _f_m_t, designed to format outgoing mail. To effect a temporary escape to _M_a_i_l command mode instead, you can use the ~:_M_a_i_l _c_o_m_m_a_n_d escape. This is especially useful for retyping the message you are replying to, using, for example: ~:t It is also useful for setting options and modifying aliases. If you wish abort the current message, you can use the escape ~q This will terminate the current message and return you to the shell (or _M_a_i_l if you were using the mmaaiill command). If the ssaavvee option is set, the message will be copied to the file "dead.letter" in your home directory. If you wish (for some reason) to send a message that contains a line beginning with a tilde, you must double it. Thus, for example, ~~This line begins with a tilde. UUSSDD::77--1166 MMaaiill RReeffeerreennccee MMaannuuaall sends the line ~This line begins with a tilde. Finally, the escape ~? prints out a brief summary of the available tilde escapes. On some terminals (particularly ones with no lower case) tilde's are difficult to type. _M_a_i_l allows you to change the escape character with the "escape" option. For example, I set set escape=] and use a right bracket instead of a tilde. If I ever need to send a line beginning with right bracket, I double it, just as for ~. Changing the escape character removes the special meaning of ~. 44..22.. NNeettwwoorrkk aacccceessss This section describes how to send mail to people on other machines. Recall that sending to a plain login name sends mail to that person on your machine. If your machine is directly (or sometimes, even, indirectly) connected to the Arpanet, you can send messages to people on the Arpanet using a name of the form name@host.domain where _n_a_m_e is the login name of the person you're trying to reach, _h_o_s_t is the name of the machine on the Arpanet, and _d_o_m_a_i_n is the higher-level scope within which the hostname is known, e.g. EDU (for educational institutions), COM (for commercial entities), GOV (for governmental agencies), ARPA for many other things, BITNET or CSNET for those networks. If your recipient logs in on a machine connected to yours by UUCP (the Bell Laboratories supplied network that communicates over telephone lines), sending mail can be a bit more complicated. You must know the list of machines through which your message must travel to arrive at his site. So, if his machine is directly connected to yours, you can send mail to him using the syntax: host!name where, again, _h_o_s_t is the name of the machine and _n_a_m_e is the login name. If your message must go through an MMaaiill RReeffeerreennccee MMaannuuaall UUSSDD::77--1177 intermediary machine first, you must use the syntax: intermediary!host!name and so on. It is actually a feature of UUCP that the map of all the systems in the network is not known anywhere (except where people decide to write it down for convenience). Talk to your system administrator about good ways to get places; the _u_u_n_a_m_e command will tell you systems whose names are recognized, but not which ones are frequently called or well-connected. When you use the rreeppllyy command to respond to a letter, there is a problem of figuring out the names of the users in the "To:" and "Cc:" lists _r_e_l_a_t_i_v_e _t_o _t_h_e _c_u_r_r_e_n_t _m_a_c_h_i_n_e. If the original letter was sent to you by someone on the local machine, then this problem does not exist, but if the message came from a remote machine, the problem must be dealt with. _M_a_i_l uses a heuristic to build the correct name for each user relative to the local machine. So, when you rreeppllyy to remote mail, the names in the "To:" and "Cc:" lists may change somewhat. 44..33.. SSppeecciiaall rreecciippiieennttss As described previously, you can send mail to either user names or aalliiaass names. It is also possible to send mes- sages directly to files or to programs, using special con- ventions. If a recipient name has a `/' in it or begins with a `+', it is assumed to be the path name of a file into which to send the message. If the file already exists, the message is appended to the end of the file. If you want to name a file in your current directory (ie, one for which a `/' would not usually be needed) you can precede the name with `./' So, to send mail to the file "memo" in the current directory, you can give the command: % Mail ./memo If the name begins with a `+,' it is expanded into the full path name of the folder name in your folder directory. This ability to send mail to files can be used for a variety of purposes, such as maintaining a journal and keeping a record of mail sent to a certain group of users. The second exam- ple can be done automatically by including the full pathname of the record file in the aalliiaass command for the group. Using our previous aalliiaass example, you might give the com- mand: alias project sam sally steve susan /usr/project/mail_record Then, all mail sent to "project" would be saved on the file "/usr/project/mail_record" as well as being sent to the UUSSDD::77--1188 MMaaiill RReeffeerreennccee MMaannuuaall members of the project. This file can be examined using _M_a_i_l _-_f. It is sometimes useful to send mail directly to a pro- gram, for example one might write a project billboard pro- gram and want to access it using _M_a_i_l. To send messages to the billboard program, one can send mail to the special name `|billboard' for example. _M_a_i_l treats recipient names that begin with a `|' as a program to send the mail to. An aalliiaass can be set up to reference a `|' prefaced name if desired. _C_a_v_e_a_t_s: the shell treats `|' specially, so it must be quoted on the command line. Also, the `| program' must be presented as a single argument to mail. The safest course is to surround the entire name with double quotes. This also applies to usage in the aalliiaass command. For example, if we wanted to alias `rmsgs' to `rmsgs -s' we would need to say: alias rmsgs "| rmsgs -s" MMaaiill RReeffeerreennccee MMaannuuaall UUSSDD::77--1199 55.. AAddddiittiioonnaall ffeeaattuurreess This section describes some additional commands useful for reading your mail, setting options, and handling lists of messages. 55..11.. MMeessssaaggee lliissttss Several _M_a_i_l commands accept a list of messages as an argument. Along with ttyyppee and ddeelleettee, described in section 2, there is the ffrroomm command, which prints the message head- ers associated with the message list passed to it. The ffrroomm command is particularly useful in conjunction with some of the message list features described below. A _m_e_s_s_a_g_e _l_i_s_t consists of a list of message numbers, ranges, and names, separated by spaces or tabs. Message numbers may be either decimal numbers, which directly spec- ify messages, or one of the special characters "" "." or "$" to specify the first relevant, current, or last relevant message, respectively. _R_e_l_e_v_a_n_t here means, for most com- mands "not deleted" and "deleted" for the uunnddeelleettee command. A range of messages consists of two message numbers (of the form described in the previous paragraph) separated by a dash. Thus, to print the first four messages, use type 1-4 and to print all the messages from the current message to the last message, use type .-$ A _n_a_m_e 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 _r_e_l_e_v_a_n_t (in the sense described earlier) is selected. Thus, to print every message sent to you by "root," do type root As a shorthand notation, you can specify simply "*" to get every _r_e_l_e_v_a_n_t (same sense) message. Thus, type * prints all undeleted messages, UUSSDD::77--2200 MMaaiill RReeffeerreennccee MMaannuuaall delete * deletes all undeleted messages, and undelete * undeletes all deleted messages. You can search for the presence of a word in subject lines with //. For example, to print the headers of all mes- sages that contain the word "PASCAL," do: from /pascal Note that subject searching ignores upper/lower case differ- ences. 55..22.. LLiisstt ooff ccoommmmaannddss This section describes all the _M_a_i_l commands available when receiving mail. -- The -- command goes to the previous message and prints it. The -- command may be given a decimal number _n as an argument, in which case the _nth previous message is gone to and printed. ?? Prints a brief summary of commands. !! Used to preface a command to be executed by the shell. PPrriinntt Like pprriinntt, but also print out ignored header fields. See also pprriinntt, iiggnnoorree and rreettaaiinn. PPrriinntt can be abbre- viated to PP. RReeppllyy or RReessppoonndd Note the capital RR 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 ~~tt, ~~cc and ~~bb tilde escapes. The subject in your reply is formed by pref- acing the subject in the original message with "Re:" unless it already began thus. If the original message included a "reply-to" header field, the reply will go _o_n_l_y to the recipient named by "reply-to." You type in your message using the same conventions available to you through the mmaaiill command. The RReeppllyy 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 MMaaiill RReeffeerreennccee MMaannuuaall UUSSDD::77--2211 often. RReeppllyy (and RReessppoonndd) can be abbreviated to RR. TTyyppee Identical to the PPrriinntt command. TTyyppee can be abbrevi- ated to TT. aalliiaass 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 alias project john sue willie kathryn creates an alias _p_r_o_j_e_c_t which expands to the four peo- ple 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). AAlliiaass can be abbreviated to aa. aalltteerrnnaatteess 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 aalltteerrnnaatteess command is used to inform _M_a_i_l that each of these other addresses is really _y_o_u. _A_l_t_e_r_n_a_t_e_s takes a list of user names and remembers that they are all actually you. When you rreeppllyy to mes- sages that were sent to one of these alternate names, _M_a_i_l 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 _a_l_t_e_r_n_a_t_e_s is given no argument, it lists the current set of alternate names. AAlltteerrnnaatteess is usually used in the .mailrc file. AAlltteerrnnaatteess can be abbreviated to aalltt. cchhddiirr The cchhddiirr command allows you to change your current directory. CChhddiirr takes a single argument, which is taken to be the pathname of the directory to change to. If no argument is given, cchhddiirr changes to your home directory. CChhddiirr can be abbreviated to cc. ccooppyy The ccooppyy command does the same thing that ssaavvee does, except that it does not mark the messages it is used on for deletion when you quit. CCooppyy can be abbreviated to ccoo. ddeelleettee Deletes a list of messages. Deleted messages can be reclaimed with the uunnddeelleettee command. DDeelleettee can be abbreviated to dd. UUSSDD::77--2222 MMaaiill RReeffeerreennccee MMaannuuaall ddpp or ddtt 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, _m_a_i_l says ``at EOF.'' eeddiitt To edit individual messages using the text editor, the eeddiitt command is provided. The eeddiitt command takes a list of messages as described under the ttyyppee command and processes each by writing it into the file Message_x where _x is the message number being edited and execut- ing the text editor on it. When you have edited the message to your satisfaction, write the message out and quit, upon which _M_a_i_l will read the message back and remove the file. EEddiitt can be abbreviated to ee. eellssee Marks the end of the then-part of an iiff statement and the beginning of the part to take effect if the condi- tion of the iiff statement is false. eennddiiff Marks the end of an iiff statement. eexxiitt or xxiitt Leave _M_a_i_l without updating the system mailbox or the file your were reading. Thus, if you accidentally delete several messages, you can use eexxiitt to avoid scrambling your mailbox. EExxiitt can be abbreviated to eexx or xx. ffiillee The same as ffoollddeerr. FFiillee can be abbreviated to ffii. ffoollddeerrss List the names of the folders in your folder directory. ffoollddeerr The ffoollddeerr 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: MMaaiill RReeffeerreennccee MMaannuuaall UUSSDD::77--2233 Name Meaning -------------------------------------------- # Previous file read % Your system mailbox %name _N_a_m_e's system mailbox & Your ~/mbox file +folder A file in your folder directory FFoollddeerr can be abbreviated to ffoo. ffrroomm The ffrroomm command takes a list of messages and prints out the header lines for each one; hence from joe is the easy way to display all the message headers from "joe." FFrroomm can be abbreviated to ff. hheeaaddeerrss When you start up _M_a_i_l to read your mail, it lists the message headers that you have. These headers tell you who each message is from, when they were received, how many lines and characters each message is, and the "Subject:" header field of each message, if present. In addition, _M_a_i_l tags the message header of each mes- sage that has been the object of the pprreesseerrvvee command with a "P." Messages that have been ssaavveedd or wwrriitttteenn are flagged with a "*." Finally, ddeelleetteedd messages are not printed at all. If you wish to reprint the current list of message headers, you can do so with the hheeaaddeerrss command. The hheeaaddeerrss 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 _w_i_n_- _d_o_w option. _M_a_i_l maintains a notion of the current "window" into your messages for the purposes of print- ing headers. Use the zz command to move forward and back a window. You can move _M_a_i_l_'_s notion of the cur- rent window directly to a particular message by using, for example, headers 40 to move _M_a_i_l_'_s attention to the messages around message 40. If a ``+'' argument is given, then the next screenful of message headers is printed, and if a ``-'' argument is given, the previous screenful of message headers is printed. HHeeaaddeerrss can be abbreviated to hh. UUSSDD::77--2244 MMaaiill RReeffeerreennccee MMaannuuaall hheellpp Print a brief and usually out of date help message about the commands in _M_a_i_l. The _m_a_n page for _m_a_i_l is usually more up-to-date than either the help message or this manual. It is also a synonym for ??. hhoolldd Arrange to hold a list of messages in the system mail- box, instead of moving them to the file _m_b_o_x in your home directory. If you set the binary option _h_o_l_d, this will happen by default. It does not override the ddeelleettee command. HHoolldd can be abbreviated to hhoo. iiff Commands in your ".mailrc" file can be executed condi- tionally depending on whether you are sending or receiving mail with the iiff command. For example, you can do: if receive _c_o_m_m_a_n_d_s... endif An eellssee form is also available: if send _c_o_m_m_a_n_d_s... else _c_o_m_m_a_n_d_s... endif Note that the only allowed conditions are rreecceeiivvee and sseenndd. iiggnnoorree NN..BB..:: _I_g_n_o_r_e has been superseded by _r_e_t_a_i_n_. Add the list of header fields named to the _i_g_n_o_r_e _l_i_s_t. 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 _V_i_a which are not usually of interest. The TTyyppee and PPrriinntt commands can be used to print a message in its entirety, including ignored fields. If iiggnnoorree is executed with no arguments, it lists the current set of ignored fields. lliisstt List the valid _M_a_i_l commands. LLiisstt can be abbreviated to ll. mmaaiill Send mail to one or more people. If you have the _a_s_k option set, _M_a_i_l will prompt you for a subject to your message. Then you can type in your message, using MMaaiill RReeffeerreennccee MMaannuuaall UUSSDD::77--2255 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 _d_o_t. To abort the message, type two inter- rupt characters (RUBOUT by default) in a row or use the ~~qq escape. The mmaaiill command can be abbreviated to mm. mmbbooxx Indicate that a list of messages be sent to _m_b_o_x in your home directory when you quit. This is the default action for messages if you do _n_o_t have the _h_o_l_d option set. nneexxtt or ++ The nneexxtt command goes to the next message and types it. If given a message list, nneexxtt goes to the first such message and types it. Thus, next root goes to the next message sent by "root" and types it. The nneexxtt command can be abbreviated to simply a new- line, which means that one can go to and type a message by simply giving its message number or one of the magic characters "^" "." or "$". Thus, . prints the current message and 4 prints message 4, as described previously. NNeexxtt can be abbreviated to nn. pprreesseerrvvee Same as hhoolldd. Cause a list of messages to be held in your system mailbox when you quit. PPrreesseerrvvee can be abbreviated to pprree. pprriinntt Print the specified messages. If the ccrrtt variable is set, messages longer than the number of lines it indi- cates are paged through the command specified by the PPAAGGEERR variable. The pprriinntt command can be abbreviated to pp. qquuiitt Terminates the session, saving all undeleted, unsaved and unwritten messages in the user's _m_b_o_x file in their login directory (messages marked as having been read), preserving all messages marked with hhoolldd or pprreesseerrvvee or UUSSDD::77--2266 MMaaiill RReeffeerreennccee MMaannuuaall never referenced in their system mailbox. Any messages that were deleted, saved, written or saved to _m_b_o_x 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 --ff 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 eexxiitt command. QQuuiitt can be abbreviated to qq. rreeppllyy or rreessppoonndd 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 ~~tt, ~~cc and ~~bb tilde escapes. The subject in your reply is formed by prefacing the subject in the origi- nal message with "Re:" unless it already began thus. If the original message included a "reply-to" header field, the reply will go _o_n_l_y to the recipient named by "reply-to." You type in your message using the same conventions available to you through the mmaaiill command. The rreeppllyy (and rreessppoonndd) command can be abbreviated to rr. rreettaaiinn Add the list of header fields named to the _r_e_t_a_i_n_e_d _l_i_s_t. 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 TTyyppee and PPrriinntt commands can be used to print a message in its entirety. If rreettaaiinn is executed with no arguments, it lists the current set of retained fields. ssaavvee It is often useful to be able to save messages on related topics in a file. The ssaavvee command gives you the ability to do this. The ssaavvee 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 ssaavvee command relative to our running example is: s 1 2 tuitionmail SSaavveedd messages are not automatically saved in _m_b_o_x at quit time, nor are they selected by the nneexxtt command described above, unless explicitly specified. SSaavvee can be abbreviated to ss. MMaaiill RReeffeerreennccee MMaannuuaall UUSSDD::77--2277 sseett Set an option or give an option a value. Used to cus- tomize _M_a_i_l. Section 5.3 contains a list of the options. Options can be _b_i_n_a_r_y, in which case they are _o_n or _o_f_f, or _v_a_l_u_e_d. To set a binary option _o_p_t_i_o_n _o_n, do set option To give the valued option _o_p_t_i_o_n the value _v_a_l_u_e, do set option=value 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 sseett command. SSeett can be abbreviated to ssee. sshheellll The sshheellll command allows you to escape to the shell. SShheellll invokes an interactive shell and allows you to type commands to it. When you leave the shell, you will return to _M_a_i_l. The shell used is a default assumed by _M_a_i_l; you can override this default by set- ting the valued option "SHELL," eg: set SHELL=/bin/csh SShheellll can be abbreviated to sshh. ssiizzee Takes a message list and prints out the size in charac- ters of each message. ssoouurrccee The ssoouurrccee command reads _m_a_i_l commands from a file. It is useful when you are trying to fix your ".mailrc" file and you need to re-read it. SSoouurrccee can be abbre- viated to ssoo. ttoopp The ttoopp 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 ttoopp prints out by setting the valued option "toplines." On a CRT terminal, set toplines=10 might be preferred. TToopp can be abbreviated to ttoo. ttyyppee Same as pprriinntt. Takes a message list and types out each UUSSDD::77--2288 MMaaiill RReeffeerreennccee MMaannuuaall message on the terminal. The ttyyppee command can be abbreviated to tt. uunnddeelleettee Takes a message list and marks each message as _n_o_t being deleted. UUnnddeelleettee can be abbreviated to uu. uunnrreeaadd Takes a message list and marks each message as _n_o_t hav- ing been read. UUnnrreeaadd can be abbreviated to UU. uunnsseett Takes a list of option names and discards their remem- bered values; the inverse of sseett . vviissuuaall It is often useful to be able to invoke one of two edi- tors, based on the type of terminal one is using. To invoke a display oriented editor, you can use the vviissuuaall command. The operation of the vviissuuaall command is otherwise identical to that of the eeddiitt command. Both the eeddiitt and vviissuuaall commands assume some default text editors. These default editors can be overridden by the valued options "EDITOR" and "VISUAL" for the standard and screen editors. You might want to do: set EDITOR=/usr/ucb/ex VISUAL=/usr/ucb/vi VViissuuaall can be abbreviated to vv. wwrriittee The ssaavvee 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 wwrriittee command. The wwrriittee command has the same syntax as the ssaavvee command, and can be abbreviated to simply ww. Thus, we could write the second message by doing: w 2 file.c As suggested by this example, the wwrriittee command is use- ful for such tasks as sending and receiving source pro- gram text over the message system. The filename in quotes, followed by the line count and character count is echoed on the user's terminal. zz _M_a_i_l presents message headers in windowfuls as described under the hheeaaddeerrss command. You can move _M_a_i_l_'_s attention forward to the next window by giving the z+ MMaaiill RReeffeerreennccee MMaannuuaall UUSSDD::77--2299 command. Analogously, you can move to the previous window with: z- 55..33.. CCuussttoomm ooppttiioonnss 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: "Ask" causes _M_a_i_l to prompt you for a subject header, I am only capitalizing "ask" as a courtesy to English. EEDDIITTOORR The valued option "EDITOR" defines the pathname of the text editor to be used in the eeddiitt command and ~e. If not defined, a standard editor is used. PPAAGGEERR Pathname of the program to use for paginating output when it exceeds _c_r_t lines. A default paginator is used if this option is not defined. SSHHEELLLL The valued option "SHELL" gives the path name of your shell. This shell is used for the !! command and ~! escape. In addition, this shell expands file names with shell metacharacters like * and ? in them. VVIISSUUAALL The valued option "VISUAL" defines the pathname of the screen editor to be used in the vviissuuaall command and ~v escape. A standard screen editor is used if you do not define one. aappppeenndd The "append" option is binary and causes messages saved in _m_b_o_x to be appended to the end rather than prepended. Normally, _M_a_i_l will put messages in _m_b_o_x in the same order that the system puts messages in your system mailbox. By setting "append," you are request- ing that _m_b_o_x be appended to regardless. It is in any event quicker to append. aasskk "Ask" is a binary option which causes _M_a_i_l to prompt you for the subject of each message you send. If you respond with simply a newline, no subject field will be sent. UUSSDD::77--3300 MMaaiill RReeffeerreennccee MMaannuuaall aasskkcccc "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. aauuttoopprriinntt "Autoprint" is a binary option which causes the ddeelleettee command to behave like ddpp -- thus, after deleting a message, the next one will be typed automatically. This is useful when quickly scanning and deleting mes- sages in your mailbox. ccrrtt The valued option is used as a threshold to determine how long a message must be before PPAAGGEERR is used to read it. ddeebbuugg The binary option "debug" causes debugging information to be displayed. Use of this option is the same as using the --dd command line flag. ddoott "Dot" is a binary option which, if set, causes _M_a_i_l to interpret a period alone on a line as the terminator of the message you are sending. eessccaappee To allow you to change the escape character used when sending mail, you can set the valued option "escape." Only the first character of the "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 spe- cial meaning, and need no longer be doubled at the beginning of a line. ffoollddeerr The name of the directory to use for storing folders of messages. If this name begins with a `/' _M_a_i_l consid- ers it to be an absolute pathname; otherwise, the folder directory is found relative to your home direc- tory. hhoolldd The binary option "hold" causes messages that have been read but not manually dealt with to be held in the sys- tem mailbox. This prevents such messages from being automatically swept into your _m_b_o_x file. iiggnnoorree The binary option "ignore" causes RUBOUT characters MMaaiill RReeffeerreennccee MMaannuuaall UUSSDD::77--3311 from your terminal to be ignored and echoed as @'s while you are sending mail. RUBOUT characters retain their original meaning in _M_a_i_l command mode. Setting the "ignore" option is equivalent to supplying the --ii flag on the command line as described in section 6. iiggnnoorreeeeooff An option related to "dot" is "ignoreeof" which makes _M_a_i_l refuse to accept a control-d as the end of a mes- sage. "Ignoreeof" also applies to _M_a_i_l command mode. kkeeeepp The "keep" option causes _M_a_i_l 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: chmod 600 /usr/spool/mail/yourname where _y_o_u_r_n_a_m_e is your login name. If you do not do this, anyone can probably read your mail, although peo- ple usually don't. kkeeeeppssaavvee When you ssaavvee a message, _M_a_i_l usually discards it when you qquuiitt. To retain all saved messages, set the "keep- save" option. mmeettoooo When sending mail to an alias, _M_a_i_l 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 "metoo." nnoohheeaaddeerr The binary option "noheader" suppresses the printing of the version and headers when _M_a_i_l is first invoked. Setting this option is the same as using --NN on the com- mand line. nnoossaavvee Normally, when you abort a message with two RUBOUTs, _M_a_i_l copies the partial letter to the file "dead.let- ter" in your home directory. Setting the binary option "nosave" prevents this. RReeppllyyaallll Reverses the sense of _r_e_p_l_y and _R_e_p_l_y commands. qquuiieett The binary option "quiet" suppresses the printing of UUSSDD::77--3322 MMaaiill RReeffeerreennccee MMaannuuaall the version when _M_a_i_l is first invoked, as well as printing the for example "Message 4:" from the ttyyppee command. rreeccoorrdd If you love to keep records, then the valued option "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. ssccrreeeenn When _M_a_i_l 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 "screen" overrides this calculation and specifies how many message headers you want printed. This number is also used for scrolling with the zz command. sseennddmmaaiill To use an alternate mail delivery system, set the "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. ttoopplliinneess The valued option "toplines" defines the number of lines that the "top" command will print out instead of the default five lines. vveerrbboossee The binary option "verbose" causes _M_a_i_l to invoke send- mail with the --vv flag, which causes it to go into ver- bose mode and announce expansion of aliases, etc. Set- ting the "verbose" option is equivalent to invoking _M_a_i_l with the --vv flag as described in section 6. MMaaiill RReeffeerreennccee MMaannuuaall UUSSDD::77--3333 66.. CCoommmmaanndd lliinnee ooppttiioonnss This section describes command line options for _M_a_i_l and what they are used for. -N Suppress the initial printing of headers. -d Turn on debugging information. Not of general inter- est. -f file Show the messages in _f_i_l_e instead of your system mail- box. If _f_i_l_e is omitted, _M_a_i_l reads _m_b_o_x in your home directory. -i Ignore tty interrupt signals. Useful on noisy phone lines, which generate spurious RUBOUT or DELETE charac- ters. It's usually more effective to change your interrupt character to control-c, for which see the _s_t_t_y shell command. -n Inhibit reading of /usr/lib/Mail.rc. Not generally useful, since /usr/lib/Mail.rc is usually empty. -s string Used for sending mail. _S_t_r_i_n_g is used as the subject of the message being composed. If _s_t_r_i_n_g contains blanks, you must surround it with quote marks. -u name Read _n_a_m_e_s_'_s mail instead of your own. Unwitting oth- ers often neglect to protect their mailboxes, but dis- cretion is advised. Essentially, --uu uusseerr is a shorthand way of doing --ff //uussrr//ssppooooll//mmaaiill//uusseerr. -v Use the --vv flag when invoking sendmail. This feature may also be enabled by setting the the option "ver- bose". The following command line flags are also recognized, but are intended for use by programs invoking _M_a_i_l and not for people. -T file Arrange to print on _f_i_l_e the contents of the _a_r_t_i_c_l_e_-_i_d fields of all messages that were either read or deleted. --TT is for the _r_e_a_d_n_e_w_s program and should NOT be used for reading your mail. -h number Pass on hop count information. _M_a_i_l will take the num- ber, increment it, and pass it with --hh to the mail delivery system. --hh only has effect when sending mail UUSSDD::77--3344 MMaaiill RReeffeerreennccee MMaannuuaall and is used for network mail forwarding. -r name Used for network mail forwarding: interpret _n_a_m_e as the sender of the message. The _n_a_m_e and --rr are simply sent along to the mail delivery system. Also, _M_a_i_l will wait for the message to be sent and return the exit status. Also restricts formatting of message. Note that --hh and --rr, which are for network mail for- warding, are not used in practice since mail forwarding is now handled separately. They may disappear soon. 77.. FFoorrmmaatt ooff mmeessssaaggeess This section describes the format of messages. Mes- sages begin with a _f_r_o_m line, which consists of the word "From" followed by a user name, followed by anything, fol- lowed by a date in the format returned by the _c_t_i_m_e library routine described in section 3 of the Unix Programmer's Man- ual. A possible _c_t_i_m_e format date is: Tue Dec 1 10:58:23 1981 The _c_t_i_m_e date may be optionally followed by a single space and a time zone indication, which should be three capital letters, such as PDT. Following the _f_r_o_m line are zero or more _h_e_a_d_e_r _f_i_e_l_d lines. Each header field line is of the form: name: information _N_a_m_e can be anything, but only certain header fields are recognized as having any meaning. The recognized header fields are: _a_r_t_i_c_l_e_-_i_d, _b_c_c, _c_c, _f_r_o_m, _r_e_p_l_y_-_t_o, _s_e_n_d_e_r, _s_u_b_j_e_c_t, and _t_o. Other header fields are also significant to other systems; see, for example, the current Arpanet mes- sage standard for much more information on this topic. A header field can be continued onto following lines by making the first character on the following line a space or tab character. If any headers are present, they must be followed by a blank line. The part that follows is called the _b_o_d_y of the message, and must be ASCII text, not containing null charac- ters. Each line in the message body must be no longer than 512 characters and terminated with an ASCII newline charac- ter. If binary data must be passed through the mail system, it is suggested that this data be encoded in a system which encodes six bits into a printable character (i.e.: uuen- code). For example, one could use the upper and lower case letters, the digits, and the characters comma and period to MMaaiill RReeffeerreennccee MMaannuuaall UUSSDD::77--3355 make up the 64 characters. Then, one can send a 16-bit binary number as three characters. These characters should be packed into lines, preferably lines about 70 characters long as long lines are transmitted more efficiently. The message delivery system always adds a blank line to the end of each message. This blank line must not be deleted. The UUCP message delivery system sometimes adds a blank line to the end of a message each time it is forwarded through a machine. It should be noted that some network transport proto- cols enforce limits to the lengths of messages. UUSSDD::77--3366 MMaaiill RReeffeerreennccee MMaannuuaall 88.. GGlloossssaarryy This section contains the definitions of a few phrases peculiar to _M_a_i_l. _a_l_i_a_s An alternative name for a person or list of people. _f_l_a_g An option, given on the command line of _M_a_i_l, prefaced with a -. For example, --ff is a flag. _h_e_a_d_e_r _f_i_e_l_d At the beginning of a message, a line which contains information that is part of the structure of the mes- sage. Popular header fields include _t_o, _c_c, and _s_u_b_- _j_e_c_t. _m_a_i_l A collection of messages. Often used in the phrase, "Have you read your mail?" _m_a_i_l_b_o_x The place where your mail is stored, typically in the directory /usr/spool/mail. _m_e_s_s_a_g_e A single letter from someone, initially stored in your _m_a_i_l_b_o_x. _m_e_s_s_a_g_e _l_i_s_t A string used in _M_a_i_l command mode to describe a sequence of messages. _o_p_t_i_o_n A piece of special purpose information used to tailor _M_a_i_l to your taste. Options are specified with the sseett command. MMaaiill RReeffeerreennccee MMaannuuaall UUSSDD::77--3377 99.. SSuummmmaarryy ooff ccoommmmaannddss,, ooppttiioonnss,, aanndd eessccaappeess This section gives a quick summary of the _M_a_i_l com- mands, binary and valued options, and tilde escapes. The following table describes the commands: Command _D_e_s_c_r_i_p_t_i_o_n -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ++ Same as nneexxtt -- Back up to previous message ?? Print brief summary of _M_a_i_l commands !! Single command escape to shell PPrriinntt Type message with ignored fields RReeppllyy Reply to author of message only RReessppoonndd Same as RReeppllyy TTyyppee Type message with ignored fields aalliiaass Define an alias as a set of user names aalltteerrnnaatteess List other names you are known by cchhddiirr Change working directory, home by default ccooppyy Copy a message to a file or folder ddeelleettee Delete a list of messages ddpp Same as ddtt ddtt Delete current message, type next message eeddiitt Edit a list of messages eellssee Start of else part of conditional; see iiff eennddiiff End of conditional statement; see iiff eexxiitt Leave mail without changing anything ffiillee Interrogate/change current mail file ffoollddeerr Same as ffiillee ffoollddeerrss List the folders in your folder directory ffrroomm List headers of a list of messages hheeaaddeerrss List current window of messages hheellpp Same as ?? hhoolldd Same as pprreesseerrvvee iiff Conditional execution of _M_a_i_l commands iiggnnoorree Set/examine list of ignored header fields lliisstt List valid _M_a_i_l commands llooccaall List other names for the local host mmaaiill Send mail to specified names mmbbooxx Arrange to save a list of messages in _m_b_o_x nneexxtt Go to next message and type it pprreesseerrvvee Arrange to leave list of messages in system mailbox pprriinntt Print messages qquuiitt Leave _M_a_i_l; update system mailbox, _m_b_o_x as appropriate rreeppllyy Compose a reply to a message rreessppoonndd Same as rreeppllyy rreettaaiinn Supersedes iiggnnoorree ssaavvee Append messages, headers included, on a file sseett Set binary or valued options UUSSDD::77--3388 MMaaiill RReeffeerreennccee MMaannuuaall sshheellll Invoke an interactive shell ssiizzee Prints out size of message list ssoouurrccee Read _m_a_i_l commands from a file ttoopp Print first so many (5 by default) lines of list of messages ttyyppee Same as pprriinntt uunnddeelleettee Undelete list of messages uunnrreeaadd Marks list of messages as not been read uunnsseett Undo the operation of a sseett vviissuuaall Invoke visual editor on a list of messages wwrriittee Append messages to a file, don't include headers xxiitt Same as eexxiitt zz Scroll to next/previous screenful of headers MMaaiill RReeffeerreennccee MMaannuuaall UUSSDD::77--3399 The following table describes the options. Each option is shown as being either a binary or valued op- tion. Option _T_y_p_e _D_e_s_c_r_i_p_t_i_o_n --------------------------------------------------------------------------- EDITOR _v_a_l_u_e_d Pathname of editor for ~e and eeddiitt PAGER _v_a_l_u_e_d Pathname of paginator for PPrriinntt, pprriinntt, TTyyppee and ttyyppee SHELL _v_a_l_u_e_d Pathname of shell for sshheellll, ~! and !! VISUAL _v_a_l_u_e_d Pathname of screen editor for ~v, vviissuuaall append _b_i_n_a_r_y Always append messages to end of _m_b_o_x ask _b_i_n_a_r_y Prompt user for Subject: field when sending askcc _b_i_n_a_r_y Prompt user for additional Cc's at end of message autoprint _b_i_n_a_r_y Print next message after ddeelleettee crt _v_a_l_u_e_d Minimum number of lines before using PPAAGGEERR debug _b_i_n_a_r_y Print out debugging information dot _b_i_n_a_r_y Accept . alone on line to terminate message input escape _v_a_l_u_e_d Escape character to be used instead of ~ folder _v_a_l_u_e_d Directory to store folders in hold _b_i_n_a_r_y Hold messages in system mailbox by default ignore _b_i_n_a_r_y Ignore RUBOUT while sending mail ignoreeof _b_i_n_a_r_y Don't terminate letters/command input with DD keep _b_i_n_a_r_y Don't unlink system mailbox when empty keepsave _b_i_n_a_r_y Don't delete ssaavveed messages by default metoo _b_i_n_a_r_y Include sending user in aliases noheader _b_i_n_a_r_y Suppress initial printing of version and headers nosave _b_i_n_a_r_y Don't save partial letter in _d_e_a_d_._l_e_t_t_e_r quiet _b_i_n_a_r_y Suppress printing of _M_a_i_l version and message numbers record _v_a_l_u_e_d File to save all outgoing mail in screen _v_a_l_u_e_d Size of window of message headers for zz, etc. sendmail _v_a_l_u_e_d Choose alternate mail delivery system toplines _v_a_l_u_e_d Number of lines to print in ttoopp verbose _b_i_n_a_r_y Invoke sendmail with the --vv flag UUSSDD::77--4400 MMaaiill RReeffeerreennccee MMaannuuaall The following table summarizes the tilde escapes available while sending mail. Escape _A_r_g_u_m_e_n_t_s _D_e_s_c_r_i_p_t_i_o_n ---------------------------------------------------------------- ~! _c_o_m_m_a_n_d Execute shell command ~b _n_a_m_e _._._. Add names to "blind" Cc: list ~c _n_a_m_e _._._. Add names to Cc: field ~d Read _d_e_a_d_._l_e_t_t_e_r into message ~e Invoke text editor on partial message ~f _m_e_s_s_a_g_e_s Read named messages ~h Edit the header fields ~m _m_e_s_s_a_g_e_s Read named messages, right shift by tab ~p Print message entered so far ~q Abort entry of letter; like RUBOUT ~r _f_i_l_e_n_a_m_e Read file into message ~s _s_t_r_i_n_g Set Subject: field to _s_t_r_i_n_g ~t _n_a_m_e _._._. Add names to To: field ~v Invoke screen editor on message ~w _f_i_l_e_n_a_m_e Write message on file ~| _c_o_m_m_a_n_d Pipe message through _c_o_m_m_a_n_d ~: _M_a_i_l _c_o_m_m_a_n_d Execute a _M_a_i_l command ~~ _s_t_r_i_n_g Quote a ~ in front of _s_t_r_i_n_g The following table shows the command line flags that _M_a_i_l accepts: Flag Description ------------------------------------------------------------ -N Suppress the initial printing of headers -T _f_i_l_e Article-id's of read/deleted messages to _f_i_l_e -d Turn on debugging -f _f_i_l_e Show messages in _f_i_l_e or _~_/_m_b_o_x -h _n_u_m_b_e_r Pass on hop count for mail forwarding -i Ignore tty interrupt signals -n Inhibit reading of /usr/lib/Mail.rc -r _n_a_m_e Pass on _n_a_m_e for mail forwarding -s _s_t_r_i_n_g Use _s_t_r_i_n_g as subject in outgoing mail -u _n_a_m_e Read _n_a_m_e_'_s mail instead of your own -v Invoke sendmail with the --vv flag Notes: --TT, --dd, --hh, and --rr are not for human use.