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show(1)
NAME
  show - show (list) messages (only available within the message handling
  system, mh)

SYNOPSIS
  show [+folder] [msgs] [-draft] [-[no]header] [-help] [-showproc program]
  [-noshowproc] [options to showproc]

OPTIONS
  -draft
      Displays the draft message, or the current message in your +drafts
      folder, if you have one set up. You cannot give a msgs argument when
      you use this option.

  -header

  -noheader
      Displays a one-line header before the message. The header consists of
      the name of the folder and the message number. This is the default
      behavior. It can be suppressed with the -noheader option.

  -help
      Prints a list of the valid options to this command.

  -showproc program [ options ]

  -noshowproc
      Specifies an alternative program to list messages. The default is to
      use the program defined by the showproc: entry in the .mh_profile file.
      You can give options to the showproc program at the command line. These
      are passed directly to showproc by show. (If you specify an option that
      has a numerical value, leave no space between the argument and the
      value. See RESTRICTIONS for more information.)

      If the -noshowproc option is specified, /bin/cat is used instead of
      showproc.

      The MH command mhl can be used as a showproc to show messages in a more
      uniform format. See mhl(1) for more details.

      If you are going to use the same showproc all the time, it is advisable
      to specify it in your .mh_profile file. See mh_profile(4) for more
      details.

  The defaults for this command are as follows:

       +folder	defaults to the current folder
       msgs defaults to the current message
       -header

DESCRIPTION
  Use show to display the contents of the current message. You can specify
  alternative messages or folders by using the +folder or msgs arguments.

  If a folder is given, it becomes the current folder. The last message shown
  becomes the current message.

  You can specify a number of messages or a range of messages using the msgs
  argument. If you specify more than one message, show prompts for a <RETURN>
  prior to listing each message.

  Typically, the messages are listed exactly as they are, with no
  reformatting.	 A program named by the showproc component in the .mh_profile
  file is invoked to do the listing, and any options not recognized by show
  are passed along to that program.  The default program is more(1).

  By default, the show command use the more program to list each message, a
  page at a time. When the end of the page is reached, it waits for a
  <RETURN> or a space. If you press <RETURN>, show prints the next line. If
  you press the space bar, it prints the next screen of data. At the end of
  the message, show automatically returns you to the system prompt.  Press q
  to quit before the end of the message.

  If the profile entry Unseen-Sequence: is present and non-empty, then show
  will remove each of the messages shown from the sequences named by the
  profile entry.

RESTRICTIONS
  The -header option does not work when msgs expands to more than one
  message. If the showproc is mhl, then this problem can be circumvented by
  referencing the messagename field in the mhl format file.

  The command show updates your mail environment before showing the message.
  Hence show may mark messages as seen before you actually see them. However,
  this is generally not a problem, unless you are using the unseen messages
  mechanism, and you interrupt show while it is showing unseen messages.

  If you use the showproc switch to specify an alternative viewer, leave no
  space between the options specified with the viewer and their values. For
  example, if you want to use the more command to scroll through messages 6
  through 10 in your inbox folder, and you want to pause every five lines,
  you would enter the following command, where there is no space between the
  option n and the value 5:

       % show +inbox 6-10 -showproc more -n5

  If there is space between the option n and the value 5, the command
  interprets 5 as a message number to view.

  If your showprocviewer is mhl, then show uses a built-in mhl: it does not
  actually run the mhl program. Hence, if you define your own showproc, do
  not call it mhl since show will not run it.

  If more(1) is your showproc (which is the default), then avoid running show
  in the background with only its standard output piped to another process.
  You should re-direct the diagnostic output of show as well

  For example, in the following incorrect example, show will go into a tty
  input state:

       % show | print &

  For users of csh, the correct command is:

       % show |& print &

  For users of sh, the correct command is:

       % show 2>&1 | print &

PROFILE COMPONENTS
  Path: To determine the user's Mail directory

  Unseen-Sequence: To name sequences denoting unseen messages

  showproc: Program to show messages

EXAMPLES
   1.  In the first example, show displays the contents of message 36 in the
       current folder:
	    % show 36

   2.  In the next example, the pr(1) program is used to list the current
       message:
	    % show -showproc pr

FILES
  $HOME/.mh_profile
      The user profile.

SEE ALSO
  more(1), mhl(1), next(1), pick(1), prev(1), scan(1)

Index for Section 1

Alphabetical listing for S

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