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mh(1)
NAME
mh, MH - Introduction to the MH system for handling mail
DESCRIPTION
MH is the name of a powerful message handling system. Rather than being a
single comprehensive program, MH consists of a collection of fairly simple
single-purpose programs to send, receive, save, and retrieve messages.
Unlike mail, MH is not a closed system that must be explicitly run, and
then exited when you wish to return to the shell. Instead, you may freely
intersperse MH commands with other shell commands. This allows you to read
and answer your mail while you have (for example) a compilation running, or
are searching for a file or running programs to find an answer to someone's
question before replying to them.
To get started using MH, add the directory /usr/bin/mh to your $PATH. This
is best done in one of the files .profile, .login, or .cshrc in your home
directory. Check the reference page for the shell you use if you do not
know how to do this. Run the inc command. If you have never used MH before,
the inc command creates the necessary default files and directories after
asking you if you want it to do so. The inc command moves mail from your
system maildrop into your MH +inbox folder. Each message is converted to
MH format, and stored as separate files in your +inbox folder until you
have read it. When you have read a message, you can refile it in another
folder that you have created.
Folders are directories in which messages are stored: the folders
themselves are stored in your Mail directory. See refile(1) and folder(1)
for more details.
For each message it processes, inc prints a one-line display. The one-line
display contains the From: field, the Subject: field, and as much of the
first line of the message as it can accommodate. The first message that inc
processes becomes your current message. All MH commands operate on the
current message unless you have specified the msg argument.
You need to run inc each time you wish to incorporate new mail into your
+inbox folder.
The scan command prints a list of the messages in your current folder.
The commands show, next, and prev are used to read specific messages from
the current folder. Of these, show displays the current message. You can
also display a specific message by specifying its number. In the following
example, the mail system displays the contents of message number 10 in the
current folder:
% show 10
The commands next and prev display the message numerically following and
numerically preceding the current message, respectively. In all cases, the
message displayed becomes the current message. If there is no current
message, show may be called with an argument, or next may be used to
advance to the first message. The command rmm (remove message) deletes the
current message.
You can delete messages other than the current message by specifying the
message number or numbers. When you specify more than one message, you
separate each message number by a space. In the following example, messages
2, 4 and 6 in the current folder are deleted:
% rmm 2 4 6
The command repl is used to reply to a message. This command places you in
the editor with a prototype response form. While you are in the editor, you
may view the item you are responding to by reading the file @.
The comp command allows you to compose a message by putting you in the
editor on a blank message header form, and then lets you send it.
All the MH commands can be run with only the -help option, which causes
them to print a list of the parameters and options with which they can be
used.
Commands that take a message number as an argument (scan, show, and repl,
for example) also take one of the following keywords:
first
Specifies the first message in the current folder.
last
Specifies the last message in the current folder.
cur Specifies the current message in the current folder.
prev
Specifies the previous message in the current folder.
next
Specifies the next message in the current folder.
Commands that take a range of message numbers, such as rmm, scan, or show,
also take any of the following abbreviations:
num1-num2
Indicates all messages in the range num1 to num2, inclusive. The
specified range must contain at least one message.
num:+n
num:-n
Indicate up to n messages beginning with (or ending with) message num.
The value of num may be any of the MH message keywords: first, prev,
cur, next, or last.
first:n
prev:n
next:n
last:n
Specify the first, previous, next, or last n messages, if they exist.
MH software offers many other options, such as creating multiple folders
for different topics, and automatically refiling messages according to
subject, source, destination, or content. The following MH reference pages
provide information on the specified topics:
alex(1)
Extracting addresses from message headers
ali(1)
Listing mail aliases
anno(1)
Annotating messages
burst(1)
Exploding digests into messages
comp(1)
Composing a message
dist(1)
Redistributing a message to additional addresses
folder(1)
Setting/listing the current folder/message
folders(1)
Listing all folders
forw(1)
Forwarding messages
inc(1)
Incorporating new mail
mark(1)
Marking messages
mhl(1)
Producing formatted listings of MH messages
mhmail(1)
Sending or reading mail
mhpath(1)
Printing full pathnames of MH messages and folders
msgchk(1)
Checking for messages
msh(1)
Running the MH shell
next(1)
Showing the next message
packf(1)
Compressing a folder into a single file
pick(1)
Selecting messages by content
prev(1)
Showing the previous message
prompter(1)
Prompting editor front end
rcvstore(1)
Incorporating new mail asynchronously
refile(1)
Filing messages in other folders
repl(1)
Replying to a message
rmf(1)
Removing a folder
rmm(1)
Removing messages
scan(1)
Producing a one line per message scan listing
send(1)
Sending a message
slocal(1)
Receiving mail hooks
show(1)
Showing (listing) messages
sortm(1)
Sorting messages
whatnow(1)
Using the prompting front-end for send
whom(1)
Reporting who will receive a message when it is sent
mh-alias(4)
Using the alias file for the MH message system
mh-format(4)
Using the format file for the MH message system
mh-mail(4)
Using the message format file for the MH message system
mh_profile(4)
Using the user customization for the MH message system
mtstailor(4)
Using the systemwide customization for the MH message system
ap(8)
Running the program that parses addresses in RFC 822-style
conflict(8)
Searching for alias/password conflicts
dp(8)
Running the program that parses dates in RFC 822-style
install-mh(8)
Initializing the MH environment for a system
post(8)
Running the backend processor for the send command
Internationalization (I18N) Features
The default mail interchange code in the United States is based on using
only 7 bits of each byte to represent each character. To provide full
support for European languages other than English, MH software must reserve
the full 8 bits of each byte for character representation. Support for 8-
bit code in mail is enabled by the system manager as part of the
configuration process for worldwide support software.
In Asian countries, there are a variety of coded character sets (codesets)
that are used for interchange of mail between systems and for processing by
local applications. Most of these codesets require more than one byte to
represent each character. For Asian languages, the MH software therefore
supports codeset conversion of mail messages between the mail interchange
codeset and the user's application codeset. For example, if the mail
interchange codeset at sites in Japan is ISO-2022-JP and the user's
application codeset is eucJP, the next command needs to convert the next
message to eucJP before displaying the message. Otherwise, Japanese
characters do not display correctly.
Codeset conversion is controlled through entries in various files, command
options, and variable settings that are associated with MH software. The
conversion is actually done by converters that reside in the
/usr/lib/nls/loc/iconv directory. Each converter supports a single
from_code and to_code conversion that is identified in the converter name.
For example, the converter that supports conversion from the ISO-2022-JP
mail interchange codeset to the eucJP user application codeset is named
ISO-2022-JP_eucJP. Codeset conversion works only if converters are
available for the mail interchange and user application codesets that apply
to the message and if those converters are installed. (Converters are
installed from optional language-specific subsets). Refer to the
iconv_intro(5) reference page for more information about codeset
conversion.
By default, to eliminate risk of data loss, the inc command stores incoming
mail messages in mail folders without codeset conversion. In this case,
the codeset conversion is performed later when you display or extract
messages from mail folders. If you want codeset conversion to be performed
at the time messages are stored in folders, you can specify the -conv
option on the inc command line. To ensure correct codeset conversion in
some Asian countries, you may need to use the inc -conv inshdr command when
incoming messages do not include a Content-Type entry in the header. Refer
to the inc(1) reference page for more information on the -conv option.
To include mail interchange codeset information in outgoing mail messages,
the MH software adds new header lines. For example, if ISO-2022-JP is the
mail interchange code, the following header lines are added to outgoing
messages:
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=ISO-2022-JP
For non-ISO codesets, the software adds the prefix "X-" to the codeset name
for identification purposes. For example, if the codeset is eucJP, the
following header lines are added to the message:
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=X-eucJP
For incoming mail, MH software uses the following settings (in the order
listed) to determine the mail interchange codeset:
1. The value specified for charset in the Content-Type: header line, if
present in the incoming message
2. The default systemwide mail interchange codeset as specified in the
/usr/lib/mail-codesets file
This file must be created by the system administrator and contains one
line that is the name of the systemwide mail interchange codeset. For
example:
ISO-2022-JP
When parsing the mail-codesets file, the MH software ignores comment
lines (lines beginning with #), blank lines, and leading or trailing
white space around the codeset name. The first line that is not a
comment or blank line is assumed to specify the systemwide mail
interchange codeset.
The MH software does not perform codeset conversion on incoming mail if
neither of these settings specifies a codeset.
For outgoing mail, MH software uses the following settings (in the order
listed) to determine the mail interchange codeset:
1. The EXCODE environment variable
2. The profile component excode defined in $HOME/.mh_profile
3. The content of /usr/lib/mail-codesets
MH software determines the user application codeset from the codeset part
of locale name settings for the following variables and file entries
(listed in order of high to low precedence):
1. The LC_ALL environment variable
2. The LANG environment variable
3. The profile component lang defined in $HOME/.mh_profile
RESTRICTIONS
You cannot create folder names that are made up of only digits.
FILES
/usr/bin/mh
Directory containing commands
/usr/lib/mh
MH library
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Index for
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Alphabetical
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Top of
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