⟦aee5b5c45⟧

TextFile

The Rand MH Message Handling System:

Tutorial

Marshall T. Rosey

Jerry N. Sweetz

Wed May 21 21:04:08 PDT 1986

Abstract

This document introduces the UCI version of the Rand MH

system to novice users. In particular, this tutorial discusses

how to read, send, reply to, and review mail; aspects of the

MH user profile affecting these activities; and other reference

works on MH.

Although this document is based on the standard MH

user manual[MRose85a], this document is meant to supple-

ment, not supersede, that lengthier work.

Comments concerning this documentation should be ad-

dressed to the Internet mailbox Bug-MH@ICS.UCI.EDU.

_____________________________________
Computer Mail: y MRose@NRTC.NORTHROP.COM, z JSweet@ICS.UCI.EDU.
\f

The Rand MH Message Handling System:

Tutorial

Acknowledgements

The MH system described herein is based on the original Rand MH system.

It has been extensively developed (perhaps too much so) by Marshall Rose and

John Romine at the University of California, Irvine. Einar Stefferud, Jerry Sweet,

and Terry Domae provided numerous suggestions to improve the UCI version of

MH.

Parts of this document are taken from a Rand tutorial [SPayn85] by Sue

Payne.

Disclaimer

The Regents of the University of California issue the following disclaimer

concerning the UCI version of MH:

"Although each program has been tested by its contributor, no warranty, express or
implied, is made by the contributor or the University of California, as to the accuracy
and functioning of the program and related program material, nor shall the fact of
distribution constitute any such warranty, and no responsibility is assumed by the
contributor or the University of California in connection herewith."

Scope

This document assumes that you have no knowledge of MH. However, to use

MH you should have some familiarity with the UNIX1 operating system, particularly

with the way commands are given, how files are named, the jargon (e.g. shell,

argument, home directory, pathname), and how to use a text editor (such as ex, vi,

or emacs ).

This tutorial covers only basic material. For additional information about

MH, consult the User's Manual [MRose85a]. Other documents of possible interest

to you include The UCI BBoards Facility [MRose84] and the MH Administrator's

Guide [MRose85b].

_____________________________________
1 UNIX is a trademark of AT&T Bell Laboratories.

1
\f

How To Use This Tutorial

Different typefaces and symbols are used in this document to denote the

kinds of things you (the user) must type on your keyboard.

1. The names of programs are given in text italics:

comp

2. Arguments to programs are given in typewriter style, delimited by

single-quotes:

`msgs'

3. UNIX pathnames are given in slanted roman:

/usr/uci/

4. Text giving a full example is presented in typewriter style:

comp -editor vi

The " " glyph is used to indicate an explicit space (the kind you make

with the space bar on your keyboard).

Introduction

With MH you can send messages to other people on your system and read

messages that other people send to you. Depending on how things have been

set up on your system, it may be possible for you to send messages to people on

remote systems. You can also reply to messages that you have received, review

them, organize them in folders, and delete them.

MH differs from other mail programs in that it is composed of many small

programs instead of just one very large program. Among new users this sometimes

causes some confusion along the lines of "what program do I run?" With MH, you

use the shell to invoke one program at a time. This means that when you handle

mail, the entire power of the shell is at your disposal in addition to the facilities

that MH provides. In the beginning, this may not make much sense or may not

seem important. However, we have found that as new users of MH gain experience,

they find this style of interface to be very useful.
\f

Summary

The most minimal list of MH commands that you can get by with is:

inc - incorporate mail (get new mail)

show - show the first message

next - show the next message

prev - show the previous message

comp - compose a new message to send

repl - reply to a received message

Comp and repl give enough prompting possibly to get you along. However,

it is suggested that you take the time to peruse this tutorial before leaping into

things.

Messages and Folders

A message takes the form of a memorandum, and is composed of two

major parts: a header, which contains such information as ``To'' and ``From''

addresses, ``Subject'' , ``Date'' , etc.; and the body, which is the actual text of

the message. Each component in the header starts with a keyword followed by a

colon and additional information. For example, in the message:

Date: 10 Oct 84 17:41:14 EDT (Wed)

To: News@udel-dewey

Subject: UCI Software Talk

From: UCI Portal (agent: Marshall Rose) <uci@udel-dewey>

This is the text.

there are four header items, and one line of text in the body. Note that a blank

line separates the body from the headers.

MH stores a message as an ordinary file in a UNIX directory. This directory is

called a folder. If you choose to keep and organize your messages, you may create

as many folders as you wish. There is no limit as to the number of messages in a

folder. Typically messages are numbered from 1 up. All of your personal folders,

along with some other information that MH needs to know, are kept in a special

directory called Mail under your home directory. Normally, MH manages these

files and directories automatically, so you needn't muck around with them directly

unless you really want to.
\f

You won't have any folders until somebody sends mail to you, as a rule. If

you are anxious to try out MH, but no one has sent you mail yet, try sending mail

to yourself to start out with.

Reading New Mail

When you are notified that you have mail (usually when you log in), perhaps

with the message

You have mail.

then you know that messages are waiting in your maildrop. To read these messages,

you first have to incorporate the mail into your "in-box" by typing the command:

inc

This incorporates the new mail from your mail drop to your in-box, which is a

folder named (naturally enough) `+inbox' . As inc incorporates your new mail, it

generates a scan listing of the mail:

Incorporating new mail into inbox...

2 + 10/10 WESTINE% USC-ISIF RFC 916 Now Available <<A new Request for Co
3 10/10 G B Reilly Gosling EMACS manual <<Marshall, I am lookin
4 10/11 WESTINE% USC-ISIF Internet Monthly Report

Each time inc is invoked, any new messages are added to the end of your

``+inbox'' folder.

To read the first message, use the show command:

show

This displays the current message. To read each subsequent message, use the next

command:

If you want to back up, the command prev shows the previous message. Another

way to read your messages is to name them all at once:

show all

This command displays them all, one after the other. The `all' argument to show

above might also be replaced with `next' or `prev' , as in

show next

show prev

which are respectively equivalent to the next and prev commands.
\f

If you have had occasion to type inc more than once, then you will find that

``show all'' is showing not only the new messages, but also the old messages

that you've already seen. Therefore, you might find it better to use

show cur-last

instead. This command displays messages from the current message (`cur' ) to the

last message (`last' ). Each time inc is invoked, it makes the first new message the

current message. It should be noted here that the name `all' given in a previous

example is equivalent to the message range `first-last' , where `first' is the

name of the first message in `+inbox' . Also, ``show'' by itself is equivalent to

show cur

As mentioned earlier, with the UNIX shell as your interface to MH, it becomes

easy to list a message on a line printer or to another file. For example,

show all _ lpr

lists all the messages in the current folder to the line printer.

To summarize, the preceding has introduced these important concepts:

folders (in particular, the `+inbox' folder), messages, message names (e.g.

`prev' , `next' , `cur' , `last' ), and message ranges (e.g. `cur-last' , `all' ).

More will be said about folders and messages in succeeding sections.

Sending Messages

To send a message, you compose a message draft, either by replying to a

message that someone sent to you, or by creating a draft from scratch. The send

command is used after completing the final draft of a message, in the same way

that you mail a paper letter only after you are finished writing it. This is a common

source of confusion among new MH users who may have had experience with other

mail systems.

This section discusses how to originate messages and how to reply to messages

that were previously received, along with a word or two about addresses.

Originating Messages

To create a message draft from scratch, use the comp program. You will be

prompted for the header components and then the body of the message. If you

make a mistake, you may correct it later with a text editor. The draft will be sent

only if you give an explicit send command, so you do not have to worry about the

draft getting away from you prematurely.

To start, you simply type:

comp
\f

To: First, the prompt `To:' appears. Here you type the address of the person

to whom you wish the message sent. If this person is on the same computer system

as you, then that person's login ID should serve as the address (e.g. `mrose' or

`jsweet' ).

Here we digress briefly to discuss addresses. A full discussion of addresses

is beyond the scope of this tutorial, but it should be mentioned that there

are other kinds of addresses besides login IDs. To send messages to people

on remote systems, the usual way is to type `login-id@host' in the `To:'

component, as in `MRose@UCI-ICSA' . Examples of `host' names at UCI include

`uci-icsa' , `uci-icse' , and `uci-cip1' . Upper and lower case letters may be

used interchangeably. Sometimes a person's last name (e.g. `Rose' , `Sweet' ) can

be used instead of a login ID, but this cannot be relied upon in a world without

unique surnames.

cc: After you have given an address to the `To:' prompt, you are prompted

for the `cc:' ("carbon copy"-an archaism) address. It is customary, but not

required, to put your own address here so that you get a copy of the message when

it is sent.

To put more than one address in the `To:' and `cc:' components, just use

a comma (",") between each address on a line.

Subject: The third prompt is for the `Subject:' component. Here a line

of any descriptive text will do. Once you have typed a line of text, a dashed line

is printed, and you are then expected to type the body of the message. End the

body with EOT (usually CTRL-D).

An example of a complete message draft, as it appears on your screen, might

be:

To: News

cc: farber, mrose

Subject: UCI Software Talk

--------

A presentation on the UCI software suite, including

the Rand/UCI Mail Handling System (MH), will be given

in CS220 on October 31st at 2:30 PM. Refreshments

will be served afterward.

/mtr

(The "^D" does not appear in the draft.)
\f

At this point, you are asked

What now?

This is known as being at What now? level. For now, there are probably only four

options that will interest you:

edit - edit the draft

list - list the draft on your screen

quit - quit, without sending the draft

send - send the draft, then quit

All of these options take various arguments, but only edit really needs an argument.

Edit: The edit option will let you edit the draft before sending it. If your

favorite text editor is vi, then you would use the edit option as:

edit vi

Just specifying edit with no argument will only let you append text to the body

of the message draft. Another editor (e.g. vi, ex, emacs ) should really be run to

finish the draft up. When you leave the editor, you will come back to the What

now? level, where you can re-edit the draft, send it, list it, or simply quit without

sending the draft at all.

Caution: while in the editor, you should not delete colons in the headers or

change the spelling of `To:' , `cc:' , or `Subject:' ; and do not leave blank lines

between these lines. Feel free to change the addresses that you typed previously, or

to add these lines if they are missing. Do not delete the dashes that separate the

header lines from the text of the message. You should not add additional header

lines unless you understand precisely what you are doing. This means particularly

that you should not type or fill in a `From:' line. When the message is sent, the

system automatically adds this line. Also, you should not type a `Date:' line in

the header. When the message is sent, the system automatically adds the current

date and time.

Quit: If you quit without sending the draft, the draft is saved in a file called

Mail/draft under your home directory. This file can be recalled later using the

`-use' argument to comp:

comp -use

The What now? level will permit you to do further editing and to send the final

draft when you are ready.
\f

Send: When it is time to send the draft on its way, use the send option by

itself. If there are any problems with the draft (for example, if one or more of the

people whom you specified in the `To:' and `cc:' components do not exist) then

you will be notified at this time.

Replying to Messages

To reply to a message, use the repl command. For example,

repl

creates a reply to the current message. You may also reply to a specific message

(other than the current one) by giving a message number (e.g. `1' , `4' , etc.) or a

message name (e.g. `first' , `last' , `prev' ):

repl prev

We haven't really introduced message numbers yet. They will be discussed in the

next section.

The process of replying to a message is very similar to composing a message

from scratch (see the previous section), but repl conveniently constructs and

displays the header of the reply draft for you. You need only type in the text of

the reply. An EOT (usually CTRL-D) indicates that you are done typing. If you

make a mistake, you may correct it later with a text editor. The draft will be sent

only if you give an explicit send command, so you do not have to worry about the

draft getting away from you prematurely.

An example of a complete reply draft, as it appears on your screen might be:

To: MRose

cc: JSweet

Subject: Re: UCI Software Talk

In-reply-to: Your message of 10 Oct 84 18:15:08 PDT (Wed).

--------

I'll be there.

-jns

(The "^D" does not appear in the draft.)

At this point, you are asked

What now?

This is known as being at What now? level. Refer to the previous section regarding

how to edit, display, or send the draft at this point.
\f

As with comp, if you quit without sending the reply draft, the draft is saved

in a file called Mail/draft under your home directory. This file can be recalled later

using the `-use' argument to comp:

comp -use

The What now? level will permit you to do further editing and to send the final

draft when you are ready.

Scanning Messages

The scan listing created by inc shows the message number, the date on which

the message was sent, the sender, and the subject of the message. If there is

sufficient space remaining on the line, the beginning of the text of the message is

displayed as well, preceded by two left angle brackets (" <<"). An example of a

scan listing is:

1+ 10/10 WESTINE% USC-ISIF RFC 916 Now Available <<A new Request for Co
2 10/10 G B Reilly Gosling EMACS manual <<Marshall, I am lookin
3 10/11 WESTINE% USC-ISIF Internet Monthly Report

Note that all messages have message numbers.

To generate your own scan listing, use the scan program. Typing simply

scan

will list all the messages in the current folder. To scan a subset of these messages,

you can specify the numbers of the messages that you consider interesting, e.g.,

scan 2 3

Message names may be specified in addition to discrete message numbers. The

built-in message names recognized by MH are:

all_: all messages in the folder (`first-last' )

first_: the first message in the folder

last_: the last message in the folder

prev__: the message immediately before the current message

cur__: the current message

next__: the message immediately after the current message
\f

Message ranges may be specified in addition to discrete message numbers or

names by separating the beginning and final message numbers with a dash ("-").

For example,

scan 5-10

scans messages 5 through 10 inclusive. A range of messages may also be specified

by separating a beginning message number and a relative number of messages with

a colon (":"). For example,

scan last:3

scans the last three messages in the folder. Similarly,

scan first:3

scans the first three messages in the folder;

scan next:3

scans the next three messages;

scan cur:3

scans the three messages beginning from the current message;

scan 100:4

scans four messages beginning from message number 100.

To summarize, the important concepts that have been discussed in the

section are: message ranges, message numbers, and message names. When an MH

command is described as taking a `msg' argument, it accepts either a message

name or a message number. Most MH commands are described as taking `msgs'

arguments, meaning that more than one message or message range is accepted.

Deleting Messages

To delete a message, use the rmm program. By default, rmm deletes the

current message, but you can give rmm a list of messages to be removed as well.

There is no corresponding "unrmm" program, but clever users with a need will

find out how to change the way rmm works so that it simply moves messages to

another folder (say, `+wastebasket' ).
\f

Filing Messages

The possibility of having folders other than ``+inbox'' has been mentioned

previously. The methods for moving messages between folders and manipulating

folders are discussed here.

The refile command moves messages from a source folder to one or more

destination folders. By default, the current message is moved from the current

folder (typically `+inbox' ) to another folder specified as an argument to refile.

For example,

refile +todo

moves the current message from the current folder to the folder ``+todo'' . To

move messages from a folder other than the current folder, use the `-src +folder'

switch, as in

refile -src +todo last +save +notes

which moves the last message in the ``+todo'' folder to the folders ``+save''

and ``+notes'' . Note that this operation is a move, not a copy; it removes the

message from the source folder. To keep a copy in the source folder as well, use the

`-link' switch

refile -link -src +todo last +save +notes

Whenever a folder argument is given to an MH command, that folder becomes

the current folder. To find out which folder is current, use the command

folder

The inc command sets the current folder back to `+inbox' by default. To find out

about all of a user's folders, use the command

folders

Since folders can contain other folders, the command

folders -recurse

will recursively examine each folder for you.

To set the current folder, without doing anything else, use the folder program

with a folder argument. Hence,

folder +inbox

makes ``+inbox'' the current folder.
\f

After a using rmm and refile on a folder a number of times, there tend to be

gaps in the numbering sequence. To compress the numbers for the all messages in

a folder, use

folder -pack

The Profile

You can customize the MH environment by editing your .mh_profile file.

Although there are lots of options, here are the most useful:

Editor___: lists the default editor that comp and repl should use. The default is

editor: prompter

but another editor might be preferred.

editor-next____: lists the editor that should be used after the last edit with editor. Hence,

if you have a profile entry

prompter-next: vi

after editing a draft with prompter, and being at What now? level, you

could say ``edit'' (instead of ``edit vi'' ) to continue to edit the

draft with vi.

Msg-Protect________:Whenever MH creates a message (for example, with inc), this is the

octal protection mode that the message is created with. The default is

Msg-Protect: 644

This protection mode permits all other users on the system to read

your messages. To maintain privacy, the mode 600 should be used.

Note that changing the mode in the profile does not change the modes

of messages that have been created already. Use the UNIX command

chmod to change the modes of your existing messages.

Folder-Protect______________:Whenever MH creates a folder (for example, with refile), this is the

octal mode that the folder is created with. The default is

Folder-Protect: 711

This mode permits other users on the system to make access to specific

messages in your folders. To maintain stricter privacy, the mode 700

should be used.
\f

program____: Each MH program that reads user's .mh_profile file looks for an entry

beginning with its own name to determine its initial defaults. For

example, if you want the default editor for repl to be emacs, the line

repl: -editor emacs

is sufficient. Command line arguments tend to override profile settings.

Given the profile setting for repl above, if you invoked repl with

repl -editor vi

repl would use the vi editor instead of emacs.

signature____: When MH posts mail for you, it looks for this profile entry for your

"real world" name. For example,

signature: Marshall Rose

The contents of the ``signature:'' entry in the profile should be a

simple phrase, with no embedded periods (e.g. "Marshall T. Rose").

Note that your profile resembles the header portion of a message. Be sure that it is

properly formatted by placing a colon after each entry name, and keep each entry

on a single line.

Conventions

Now let's summarize the conventions that MH programs use:

1. Any MH command that deals with messages can be given a `+folder'

argument to say which folder to use. However, only one `+folder'

argument may be given per command in most cases.

2. If an MH command accepts a `msgs' argument, then any number of

messages can be given to the command. The MH command will expand

all the ranges and process each message, starting with the lowest

numbered one and working its way to the message with the highest

number.

3. If an MH command accepts a `msg' argument, then at most one message

can be given.

4. Switches (options) to MH commands start with a dash. Unlike the

standard UNIX convention, each switch consists of more than one

character, for example `-header' . To minimize typing, only a unique

abbreviation of the switch need be typed; thus for `-header' , `-hea'

is probably sufficient, depending on the other switches accepted by the

command.
\f

5. All MH commands have a `-help' switch, which must be spelled

out fully. When an MH command encounters the `-help' switch, it

prints out the syntax of the command, the switches that it accepts,

and version information. In the list of switches, parentheses indicate

required characters. For example, all `-help' switches will appear as

`-(help)' , indicating that no abbreviation is accepted.

6. Many MH switches have both on and off forms, such as `-format' and

`-noformat' . In these cases, the last occurrence of the switch on the

command line determines the setting of the option.

7. All MH commands that read your MH profile operate the same way:

first_, the profile is consulted for an entry matching the name with which

the command was invoked; second___, if such an entry was found, then the

command immediately uses the arguments listed; third__, any arguments

on the command line are then interpreted. Since most switches have

both on and off forms, it's easy to customize the default options for each

MH command in the .mh_profile , and to override those defaults on the

command line.

Online Documentation

Each MH program has its own UNIX manual entry. For example, to get

information about comp, type

man comp

The manual entry for mh(1) lists all MH commands, while the manual entry for

mh-chart (1) lists the syntax and switches for all MH commands.

In addition, here are a few other manual entries might be found useful:

mh-alias (5) to find out how aliases in MH work;

mh-mail (5) to find out how MH stores and interprets messages (this manual entry

explains all of the standard header components);

mh-profile(5) to find out about the MH user-environment.

The manual pages for MH are in the standard UNIX format, but contain

additional sections unique to MH. Here's a summary of the sections one might find

in an MH manual entry:

Name command name and one-line description.

Synopsis syntax of the command.

All commands accept a `-help' switch.
\f

Description semantics of the command.

Files files used by the command

Almost always this includes .mh_profile .

Profile entries in the .mh_profile used by the command;

Components these do not include the profile entry for the command itself.

See Also other UNIX manual entries (usually MH programs) that are related to

this command.

Defaults default arguments for the command

If the command takes a `+folder' argument, this defaults to the

current folder. If the command takes a `msg' argument, this defaults

to the current message. If the command takes a `msgs' argument, this

defaults to the current message or all messages, depending on which one

makes more sense.

Context changes to your MH context made by the command.

Hints Helpful hints discussing the easy way to do things.

History A historical perspective on why MH works the way it does.

Bugs Too embarrassing to mention.

Just kidding.

Obviously, not all MH manual entries may have all of these sections.

Reporting Problems

If problems are encountered with an MH program, the problems should be

reported to the local maintainers of MH. When doing this, the name of the program

should be reported, along with the version information for the program. To find

out what version of an MH program is being run, invoke the program with the

`-help' switch. In addition to listing the syntax of the command, the program

will list information pertaining to its version. This information includes the version

of MH, the host it was generated on, the date the program was loaded, and the

configuration options in effect when MH was generated. For example,

version: MH 6.1 #1[UCI] (gremlin) of Wed Nov 6 01:13:53 PST 1985

options: [BSD42] [MHE] [NETWORK] [SENDMTS] [MMDFII] [SMTP] [POP]

The ``6.1 # 1[UCI]'' indicates that the program is from the UCI mh.6

version of MH. The program was generated on the host ``gremlin'' on

``Wed Nov 6 01:13:53 PST 1985'' . It's usually a good idea to send the output

of the `-help' switch along with your report.
\f

If there is no local MH maintainer, try the address Bug-MH. If that fails, use

the Internet mailbox Bug-MH@UCI.ARPA.

DataMuseum.dk

DKUUG/EUUG Conference tapes

⟦aee5b5c45⟧ TextFile

Derivation

TextFile