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pick(1)
NAME
pick - select messages by content (only available within the message
handling system, mh)
SYNOPSIS
pick [+folder] [msgs] [options]
OPTIONS
-after date
Searches for messages sent after the specified date. This command can
be used with pattern-matching options, and also in conjunction with the
-before option to specify a date range. The date must be enclosed in
double quotes ("). This option accepts RFC 822-style dates. It also
accepts days of the week, and the special dates today and yesterday.
Days of the week always refer to days in the past; for example,
saturday refers to last Saturday, not to next Saturday. If you specify
a day of the week or a special date, pick counts days as 24-hour
periods relative to the current day and time. For example, if it is
9:30 A.M. on 11 July 1995 and you specify -after yesterday, the pick
command finds messages sent after 24 hours ago, or 9:30 A.M. on 10 July
1995.
By default, pick consults the Date: field of the message. If you wish
to use the date in another header field, you can specify this with the
-datefield option.
-before date
Searches for messages sent before the specified date. This command can
be used with pattern-matching options, and also in conjunction with the
-after option to specify a date range. The date must be enclosed in
double quotes ("). This option accepts RFC 822-style dates.
It also accepts days of the week, and the special dates today,
tomorrow, and yesterday. Days of the week always refer to days in the
past; for example, saturday refers to last Saturday, not to next
Saturday. If you specify a day of the week or a special date, pick
counts days as 24-hour periods relative to the current day and time.
For example, if it is 9:30 A.M. on 11 July 1995 and you specify -before
yesterday, the pick command finds messages sent before 24 hours ago, or
9:30 A.M. on 10 July 1995.
By default, pick consults the Date: field of the message. If you wish
to use the date in another header field, you can specify this with the
-datefield option.
-cc pattern
Searches for the specified pattern in the cc: field of messages. This
option is case-insensitive: lower- and upper-case letters are treated
as identical. So a search for the pattern phillips would also find
Phillips and PHILLIPS. If the pattern contains spaces, you must enclose
it in double quotes (").
-date pattern
Searches for messages sent on a specified date. This option consults
the Date: field of messages. You must enclose the date that you give in
double quotes (") if it contains spaces.
-datefield field
Specifies the header field to be used by the -before and -after
options. By default, these options consult the Date: field of the
message header. You can specify a different header field by naming it
with this option. The -datefield option must precede the -before or
-after options it is used with.
-from pattern
Searches for the specified pattern in the From: field of messages. This
option is case-insensitive: lower- and upper-case letters are treated
as identical. So a search for the pattern phillips would also find
Phillips and PHILLIPS. If the pattern contains spaces, you must enclose
it in double quotes (").
-help
Prints a list of the valid options to this command.
-list
-nolist
The -list option lists the numbers of the messages that have met the
search criteria. This is the usual default behavior of pick. If you
use the -nolist option, pick indicates how many messages met the search
criteria.
If you use the -sequence option to add the messages found to a
sequence, the default behavior is to use the -nolist option.
-public
-nopublic
Sets the read permissions of sequences. Normally, when you create a
sequence with the -sequence option, the sequence will not be accessible
to other MH users. The -public option makes the sequence accessible to
other MH users. You can use the -nopublic option to ensure that the
sequence that you create is only accessible to yourself.
-search pattern
Searches the entire message for the specified string. Each line of the
message is searched for the pattern that you specify. The -search
option is a modified grep(1). Like grep, this option is case-sensitive;
it treats upper- and lower-case letters as different. So a search for
the word strawberries would not find a messages which contained the
word STRAWBERRIES. If the search pattern contains spaces, you must
enclose it in double quotes (").
-sequence name
Specifies a sequence in which pick places the messages found. For more
information on sequences, see mark(1). The name of the sequence must
begin with a letter, and must consist entirely of alphabetic or numeric
characters; no punctuation is allowed.
-subject pattern
Searches for the specified pattern in the Subject: field of messages.
This option is case-insensitive: lower- and upper-case letters are
treated as identical. So a search for the pattern phillips would also
find Phillips and PHILLIPS. If the pattern contains spaces, you must
enclose it in double quotes (").
-to pattern
Searches for the specified pattern in the To: field of messages. This
option is case-insensitive: lower- and upper-case letters are treated
as identical. So a search for the pattern phillips would also find
Phillips and PHILLIPS. If the pattern contains spaces, you must enclose
it in double quotes (").
-zero
-nozero
Specifies whether to zero existing sequences before adding new
messages. Normally, pick removes all existing messages from a sequence
before adding messages to it. If you specify the -nozero option, pick
will add the messages it finds to the existing contents of the
sequence. This option only works with the -sequence option.
--component pattern
Searches a specified header field. If you wish to search for a pattern
in a particular header field, you can specify the field by placing two
dashes (-) before the name of the field. This option is case-
insensitive: lower- and upper-case letters are treated as identical.
So a search for the pattern phillips would also find Phillips and
PHILLIPS. If the pattern contains spaces, you must enclose it in double
quotes (").
The pick command recognizes the following common header fields: To:,
cc:, Date:, From:, and Subject:. You can search these fields by
preceding the name with one dash only.
In addition to the above options, you can direct pick to start its search a
specified number of days ago. To do this, precede the number of days with a
dash (-). The pick command counts days as 24-hour periods relative to the
current day and time. For example, if it is 9:30 A.M. on 11 July 1995 and
you specify -10, the following pick command finds messages sent before 240
hours ago, or 9:30 A.M. on 30 June 1995:
% pick -subject strawberries -10
1
6
The pick command also supports complex boolean operations. The -not, -or
and -and options allow you to modify the behavior of pattern-matching
options. In the following command, the -not option means that pick searches
for messages that were not from fred:
% pick -not -from fred
In the next example, the -or option finds all messages from fred or from
david. If the -or option is not used, pick searches for messages with both
the string fred and the string david in the From: field.
% pick -from fred -or -from david
The pattern-matching options normally take precedence over -not, which in
turn takes precedence over -and, which in turn takes precedence over -or.
You can override the default precedence with the -lbrace and -rbrace
options. These act just like opening and closing parentheses in logical
expressions.
DESCRIPTION
The pick command lets you search messages in a folder on a diverse range of
search criteria.
You can search the mail headers or the text of some or all of the messages
within a folder for the specified criteria. You can use pattern matching or
date constraint operations. You can use the messages that you find with
other MH commands, or you can place them in a sequence.
By default, pick searches all the messages in the current folder. You can
specify a folder other than the current folder using the +foldername
option. Also, if you do not want to search all messages within the folder,
you can specify more than one message or a range of messages using the
message numbers.
You can search on the contents of the most common header fields by giving
the name of the field as an option, preceded by a dash (-). The pick
command allows you to specify the following header fields in this way: To:,
cc:, Date:, From:, and Subject:. You can also search the contents of any
other header field by preceding the name of the field with two dashes.
The pick also allows you to introduce time constraints. You can search for
messages sent before, after, or between specified dates.
Combining pick with Other Commands
You can combine the output of pick directly with any MH command. by using a
technique called back-quoting. Enclose the pick command and its associated
arguments and options in back quotes (`). The system performs back-quoted
commands first. In the following example, the pick command is performed
first, and the output is then listed by the scan command:
% scan `pick -from jones`
3 16/01 jones Meeting 10.00 tomorrow<<There wi
17 22/01 jones Minutes of meeting 16/1<<Any com
21 01/02 jones Next week's meeting canceled<<T
If pick finds that there is no mail from Jones, it will output the illegal
character 0. This will cause the scan command to fail gracefully.
You can use back-quoting to combine pick with any MH command. For more
information on back-quoting, see the reference page for your shell; for
example, csh(1) or sh(1).
RESTRICTIONS
The sequence name, punctuation and message list must not exceed 1024
characters. In practice, this gives a reasonable limit of approximately 200
non-consecutive messages in a sequence.
PROFILE COMPONENTS
Path: To determine your Mail directory
EXAMPLES
1. The first example finds all the mail in the current folder that was
sent by Christine:
% pick -from christine
1
3
8
2. In the next example, pick searches messages 10-20 in the +sent folder
for messages that were sent to Kafka:
% pick +sent 10-20 -to Kafka
pick: no messages match specification
3. The next example finds all messages from Jack, and places them in a
sequence called testing:
% pick -from Jack -sequence testing
3 hits
4. The next example finds all messages sent to Holloway since 10th June:
% pick -to holloway -after "10 Jun 1990"
19
FILES
$HOME/.mh_profile
The user profile.
SEE ALSO
csh(1), ed(1), grep(1), sh(1), inc(1), mark(1)
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Index for
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Alphabetical
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