More About Sequences
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As you saw in the previous sections,
an MH sequence is a list of message numbers.
You choose names for the sequences.
When you want to use the messages in the sequence, you can type the
sequence name instead of typing all the numbers.
Each folder can have up to 26 sequences (in earlier MH versions and on
systems that aren't 32-bit, the limit is 10).
Each sequence can have hundreds of messages.
A sequence name can be made of letters only; it can't be one of the
reserved message names like first, last, and so on (see
the Section
Find and Specify with scan, pick, Ranges, Sequences).
This section has examples.
Newer versions of the
mh-sequence(5)
manual page have a complete
description; if you have an old version, see
the Section Online Manual Pages.
Sequences are great for keeping track of certain messages -- temporarily
or for weeks or months.
In my user-consulting job, for instance, we kept a sequence named
common in each folder -- a list of messages which answer common
questions that we might want to reuse:
% scan common +file_xfr
3 03/23 To:ann@suxpr.mar. Re: FTP in the background<<> Is
19 06/02 To:xvhang Re: UUEncode<<> Can Quark handle
61 11/13 To:carolo Re: .arc unpacking<<> A while ba
63 11/17 To:danr Re: shar type file packager<<Tha
85 01/15 To:Rudy Valleyfor Re: 7 & 8 bit switches<<> It is
You've seen that the pick command can create or add to sequences.
The other MH command for working with sequences is mark.
With mark, you can create, add messages to, delete messages from,
or remove sequences.
You can add messages to a sequence with mark -add.
There are two ways to add messages to a sequence:
-zero and -nozero.
If the sequence already exists and you want to change it completely,
the -zero switch deletes any old message numbers from the list before
adding the new ones.
Or, to merge messages to an existing sequence without deleting existing
message numbers, use -nozero.
By default, mark uses -nozero.
(The pick default is -zero.)
Here's an example.
First pick creates or replaces a sequence named
picked; it stores the message numbers from alison.
Second, pick adds the message from steven to the same sequence.
Third, the mark command adds the current message to the sequence.
(If you don't tell mark which one to add, it adds the current message.)
Fourth, I use scan to see what's in the sequence.
Finally, I start forw to forward copies of the messages (4, 21, 23, 44)
to allan@mukluk.bitnet, as shown in the following example:
% pick -from alison -sequence picked
2 hits
% pick -from steven -sequence picked -nozero
1 hit
% mark -add -sequence picked
% scan picked
4 03/21 Alison Cosgreave What's happening here at UMass<<
21 04/01 Steven Dommer Re: meeting minutes<<> A while ba
23 04/02 Alison Cosgreave Re: What's happening at Tek<<Not
44+ 04/29 To:jbq@animals.sc What we talked about at lunch<<Jo
% forw picked
To: allan@mukluk.bitnet
cc:
Subject: Messages from Alison, Steven, and me
...
If you give mark the -sequence option, the default action
is -add.
(Otherwise, the default is -list.)
So, to add messages 12-25 to the foo sequence, you can type:
% mark -seq foo 12-25
Sometimes I need to save a message number in a folder
that I can come back to later.
The Section
Make Message Bookmarks with mark
shows an easy way to do that with a one-message sequence named here.
A message is automatically deleted from a sequence when you use
commands like rmm or refile on the message -- if the message
is removed from the folder, the sequence is updated for you.
(The cur sequence (for the current message number, explained in
Section The cur Sequence) won't be deleted.)
To take messages out of a sequence yourself, use mark -delete.
To remove one or a few messages, just give the message numbers -- the
first command below removes message numbers 1 and 3 from the sequence
called info.
To remove a sequence completely, use the sequence name as the message
range -- as in
the second command below, which removes the temp sequence from
your current folder.
Remember that you can abbreviate MH switches (in fact, you can abbreviate
most mark switches to single letters, though I haven't here):
% mark -del -seq info 1 3
% mark -del -seq temp temp
There's a weird twist that you should know about.
If you use -zero with -delete, it will add all messages
from the folder to the sequence except the messages you name.
An example will help here.
Let's say that your current folder has messages numbered 1 through 10.
The command:
% mark -delete -zero -sequence most 1
would put messages 2 through 10 in the sequence called most.
Even more surprising, that command will create the sequence if it doesn't
exist!
You can delete from (or add to) more than one sequence at a time.
For example, to remove all messages from the sequences march and
april (and thereby remove the sequences too), type the following:
% mark -del all -seq march -seq april
The switch -list shows you what's in one or more sequences.
If you don't give a sequence name, it shows all sequences in your current
folder:
% mark -list
cur: 2
info: 4 6
myinfo: 12-18 20 25-36
% mark -list -sequence info
info: 4 6
In fact, if you don't give a -sequence switch, the default is
-list.
So, to get a list of all sequences, just type mark.
The mark -list command lists message numbers two ways:
in ranges like 12-18, and in single message numbers like 6.
For example, the info sequence above has messages 4 and 6 in it.
The myinfo sequence has messages 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18; message
20; and messages 25 through 36, inclusive.
The message ranges in mark -list output always contain exactly those
messages, with no gaps.
For instance, if your folder has messages 12, 14, and 16 in it,
mark -list will always list those as:
seqname: 12 14 16
and never as:
seqname: 12-16
The special sequence named cur holds the current message number for
the folder.
Here are two handy entries you can add to your MH profile.
If you edit your MH profile and add an entry like this:
Previous-Sequence: pseq
then MH will save the message numbers from the previous MH command in a sequence
named pseq (you can use any legal sequence name; I just like pseq).
For example, if you scan four messages, you can show all of them on the
next command line without typing their numbers -- just use pseq:
% scan 1 2 113 227
1 01/09 Joe Doe Test message<<Hi!>>
2 01/09 Joe Doe Another test<<Well, this is anot
113+ 01/11 Joe Doe The latest on my project<<It's g
227 01/13 Joe Doe <<I can't get MH to work so I'm
% show pseq
...Messages 1, 2, 113, 227 appear...
% mark -list -seq pseq
pseq: 1-2 113 227
NOTE:
A Previous-Sequence: entry can cause trouble if your folders
have hundreds or thousands of messages with gaps in the numbering.
If you run a command like scan or refile all in those folders,
MH tries to put a complete listing of all the folder's message numbers on a
single line in the .mh_sequences file.
If the line gets too long, you'll see the error message
xxx/.mh_sequences is poorly formatted.
To prevent this, keep big folders packed with folder -pack.
If it happens anyway, use the following five commands to delete the long
line from the .mh_sequences file and pack the folder
(these commands assume that your previous sequence is named pseq):
% cd `mhpath`
% mv .mh_sequences temp_sequences
% sed /pseq:/d temp_sequences > .mh_sequences
% folder -pack
% rm temp_sequences
(If you aren't confident about this, check with an expert first.)
I used the command sed /pseq:/d instead of grep -v pseq:
because some versions of grep truncate long lines.
Here's the other useful entry.
If you put something like this in your MH profile:
Sequence-Negation: not
and put not before the name of a sequence, MH will use all
messages from the current folder that are not in the sequence.
For example, if your folder has messages numbered 1 through 10 and the
sequence named important has messages 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9 in it,
then typing the following line:
% refile notimportant +junk
would move messages 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 into the junk folder.
The sequence-negation shouldn't be part of a sequence name you already use.
For example, a sequence named notes starts with the characters
not, so not would be a bad sequence-negation.
You can use nonalphabetic sequence-negation characters, like the
exclamation point (!) and the tilde (~), but your
shell may treat those as special characters and force you to type a
backslash (\) before them.
For example, if you set this entry in your MH profile:
Sequence-Negation: !
the C shell makes you type \! before a sequence name, like this:
% scan \!important
One compromise is a colon (:) character:
Sequence-Negation: :
In the previous example, you could have typed the following cryptic-looking
command:
% refile :important +junk
If you never start your folder names with an uppercase X, you might
use that letter for a sequence-negation, so a negated sequence
could look like
Ximportant.
The inc command -- together with the show, next, and
prev commands -- can cooperate to keep a
sequence of all the messages which have never been read in a folder.
For instance, this is a good way to be sure that you've read every message
in your inbox.
Read about the unseen sequence in the
Section Messages You Haven't Read.
The current message number in each folder is kept in a sequence called
cur.
Each folder has its own cur sequence -- a single message number.
MH commands update this sequence automatically.
A folder doesn't always have a cur sequence.
For instance, when you first make a new folder, it won't have a current
message.
If you remove or refile the current message, the cur sequence will
not be deleted, though.
That's so commands like next and prev will
still be able to find the next or previous message.
The Section Sharing Other Users' Folders
explains that useful MH capability.
If anyone is sharing your mail folders and you make a sequence, the other
person will be able to use the sequence too.
This is called a public sequence.
(If you've set your Mail directory and/or folders so that no one can
access them, don't be concerned -- the name "public" doesn't mean that other
users can override your security.)
(Public sequences are stored in a file named .mh_sequences in the
folder directory.
The .mh_sequences is mode 644, but users won't be able to read it
unless they have access to the top-level mail directory and the folder.
Private sequences are stored in the file named context in the user's
MH directory.
The context file is mode 600, and each user has his/her own
context file; other users' context files are never used.
See the
Figure Important parts of a UNIX filesystem.)
When you define a sequence, or add to one, you can use the switch
-nopublic to make it private.
If the sequence was public before, now it'll be private.
Here's an example that shows the user of mark -nopublic
changing a sequence from public to private.
Compare the listings for the myinfo sequence in the two mark
-list outputs:
% mark -list
cur: 2
info: 4 6
myinfo: 4-6
% mark -add -seq myinfo -nopublic 8
% mark -list
cur: 2
info: 4 6
myinfo (private): 4-6 8
There is a bug in MH 6.6 through MH 6.8.3 (and maybe others).
If you give mark -list the name of a private
sequence, it won't show you that it's (private).
Compare the listings of the previous myinfo sequence to the following:
% mark -list -seq myinfo
myinfo: 4-6 8
To make all sequences private, add the empty entry:
mh-sequences:
to your MH
profile.
See the Section Changing MH Directory Name
for an example of where this is useful.
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