MAN page from Old RedHat 5.X mh-6.8.4-6.i386.rpm

SCAN

Section: User Commands (1)
Updated: MH.6.8
Index

NAME

scan - produce a one line per message scan listing

SYNOPSIS

scan[+folder] [msgs][-clear] [-noclear][-form formatfile][-format string][-header] [-noheader][-width columns][-reverse] [-noreverse][-file filename][-help]

DESCRIPTION

Scan produces a one-line-per-message listing of the specifiedmessages.Each scan line contains the message number (name),the date, the ``From:'' field, the ``Subject'' field, and, if roomallows, some of the body of the message.For example:

15+  07/05   Dcrocker  nned  Last week I asked some of16 - 07/05   dcrocker  message id format  I recommend18   07/06   Obrien    Re: Exit status from mkdir19   07/07*  Obrien    ``scan'' listing format in MH

The `+' on message 15 indicates that it is the current message.The `-' on message 16 indicates that it has beenreplied to, as indicated by a ``Replied:'' component (produced bythe `-annotate' switch to the repl command).The `*' on message 19 indicates that there was no ``Date:''header present (the last write date of the message is given instead).

If there is sufficient room left on the scan line after thesubject, the line will be filled with text from the body,preceded by <<, and terminated by >> if the body is sufficiently short.Scan actually reads each of the specifiedmessages and parses them to extract the desired fields.During parsing, appropriate error messages will be produced ifthere are format errors in any of the messages.

The `-header' switch produces a header line prior to the scanlisting.Currently,the name of the folder and the current date and time are output(see the HISTORY section for more information).

If the `-clear' switch is used and scan's output is directed to aterminal,then scan will consult the $TERM and $TERMCAPenvariables to determine yourterminal type in order to find out how to clear the screen prior to exiting.If the `-clear' switch is used and scan's output is not directed toa terminal (e.g., a pipe or a file),then scan will send a formfeed prior to exiting.

For example, the command:

(scan -clear -header; show all -show pr -f) | lpr

produces a scan listing of the current folder, followed by a formfeed,followed by a formatted listing of all messages in the folder, one perpage. Omitting `-show pr -f' will cause the messages to be concatenated,separated by a one-line header and two blank lines.

To override the output format used by scan,the `-format string' or `-form file' switches are used.This permits individual fields of the scan listing to be extracted with ease.The string is simply a format string and the file is simply a format file.See mh-format (5) for the details.

In addition to the standard mh-format (5) escapes,scan also recognizes the following additional component escapes:

Escape    Returns  Descriptionbody      string   the (compressed) first part of the bodydtimenow  date     the current datefolder    string   the name of the current folder

If no date header is present in the message, the functionescapes which operate on {date} will return values for the date of last modification of the message file itself.This is particularly handy for scanning a draft folder,as message drafts usually aren't allowed to have dates in them.

scan will update the MH context prior to starting the listing,so interrupting a long scan listing preserves the new context.MH purists hate this idea.^$HOME/.mh_profile~^The user profile^Path:~^To determine the user's MH directory^Alternate-Mailboxes:~^To determine the user's mailboxes^Current-Folder:~^To find the default current folderinc(1), pick(1), show(1), mh-format(5)`+folder' defaults to the folder current`msgs' defaults to all`-format' defaulted as described above`-noheader'`-width' defaulted to the width of the terminalIf a folder is given, it will become the current folder.Prior to using the format string mechanism,`-header' used to generate a heading saying what each column in the listingwas.Format strings prevent this from happening.The argument to the `-format' switch must be interpreted as a single tokenby the shell that invokes scan.Therefore,one must usually place the argument to this switch inside double-quotes.
The value ofeach component escape is set by scan to the contentsof the first message header scan encounterswith the corresponding component name;any following headers with the same component name are ignored.

The switch `-reverse', makes scan list the messagesin reverse order; this should be considered a bug.

The `-file filename' switch allows the user to obtain a scanlisting of a maildrop file as produced by packf. This listingincludes every message in the file. The user should use mshfor more selective processing of the file. `-reverse' is ignoredwith this option.

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