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1.1 root 1: .bp
2: .sh 1 "Common usage"
3: .pp
4: The
5: .i Mail
6: command has two distinct usages, according to whether one
7: wants to send or receive mail. Sending mail is simple: to send a
8: message to a user whose login name is, say,
9: \*(lqroot,\*(rq
10: use the shell
11: command:
12: .(l
13: % Mail root
14: .)l
15: then type your message. When you reach the end of the message, type
16: an EOT (control\-d) at the beginning of a line, which will cause
17: .i Mail
18: to echo \*(lqEOT\*(rq and return you to the Shell. When the user you sent mail
19: to next logs in, he will receive the message:
20: .(l
21: You have mail.
22: .)l
23: to alert him to the existence of your message.
24: .pp
25: If, while you are composing the message
26: you decide that you do not wish to send it after all, you can
27: abort the letter with a \s-2RUBOUT\s0. Typing a single \s-2RUBOUT\s0
28: causes
29: .i Mail
30: to print
31: .(l
32: (Interrupt -- one more to kill letter)
33: .)l
34: Typing a second
35: \s-2RUBOUT\s0 causes
36: .i Mail
37: to save your partial letter on the file
38: .q dead.letter
39: in your home directory and abort the letter.
40: Once you have
41: sent mail to someone, there is no way to undo the act, so be
42: careful.
43: .pp
44: The message your recipient reads will consist of the message you
45: typed, preceded by a line telling who sent the message (your login name)
46: and the date and time it
47: was sent.
48: .pp
49: If you want to send the same message to several other people, you can list
50: their login names on the command line.
51: Thus,
52: .(l
53: % Mail sam bob john
54: Tuition fees are due next Friday. Don't forget!!
55: <Control\-d>
56: EOT
57: %
58: .)l
59: will send the reminder to sam, bob, and john.
60: .pp
61: If, when you log in, you see the message,
62: .(l
63: You have mail.
64: .)l
65: you can read the mail by typing simply:
66: .(l
67: % Mail
68: .)l
69: .i Mail
70: will respond by typing its version number and date and then listing
71: the messages you have waiting. Then it will type a prompt and await
72: your command. The messages are assigned numbers starting with 1 \*- you
73: refer to the messages with these numbers.
74: .i Mail
75: keeps tack of which messages are
76: .i new
77: (have been sent since you last read your mail) and
78: .i read
79: (have been read by you). New messages have an
80: .b N
81: next to them in the header listing and old, but unread messages have
82: a
83: .b U
84: next to them.
85: .i Mail
86: keeps track of new/old and read/unread messages by putting a
87: header field called
88: .q Status
89: into your messages.
90: .pp
91: To look at a specific message, use the
92: .b type
93: command, which may be abbreviated to simply
94: .b t .
95: For example, if you had the following messages:
96: .(l
97: N 1 root Wed Sep 21 09:21 "Tuition fees"
98: N 2 sam Tue Sep 20 22:55
99: .)l
100: you could examine the first message by giving the command:
101: .(l
102: type 1
103: .)l
104: which might cause
105: .i Mail
106: to respond with, for example:
107: .(l
108: Message 1:
109: From root Wed Sep 21 09:21:45 1978
110: Subject: Tuition fees
111: Status: R
112:
113: Tuition fees are due next Wednesday. Don't forget!!
114:
115: .)l
116: Many
117: .i Mail
118: commands that operate on messages take a message number as an
119: argument like the
120: .b type
121: command. For these commands, there is a notion of a current
122: message. When you enter the
123: .i Mail
124: program, the current message is initially the first one. Thus,
125: you can often omit the message number and use, for example,
126: .(l
127: t
128: .)l
129: to type the current message. As a further shorthand, you can type a message
130: by simply giving its message number. Hence,
131: .(l
132: 1
133: .)l
134: would type the first message.
135: .pp
136: Frequently, it is useful to read the messages in your mailbox in order,
137: one after another. You can read the next message in
138: .i Mail
139: by simply typing a newline. As a special case, you can type a newline
140: as your first command to
141: .i Mail
142: to type the first message.
143: .pp
144: If, after typing a message, you wish to immediately send a reply,
145: you can do so with the
146: .b reply
147: command.
148: .b Reply ,
149: like
150: .b type ,
151: takes a message number as an argument.
152: .i Mail
153: then begins a message addressed to the user who sent you the message.
154: You may then type in your letter in reply, followed by a <control-d>
155: at the beginning of a line, as before.
156: .i Mail
157: will type EOT, then type the ampersand prompt to indicate its readiness
158: to accept another command. In our example, if, after typing the
159: first message, you wished to reply to it, you might give the command:
160: .(l
161: reply
162: .)l
163: .i Mail
164: responds by typing:
165: .(l
166: To: root
167: Subject: Re: Tuition fees
168: .)l
169: and waiting for you to enter your letter.
170: You are now in the message collection mode described at the beginning
171: of this section and
172: .i Mail
173: will gather up your message up to a control\-d.
174: Note that it copies the subject
175: header from the original message. This is useful in that correspondence
176: about a particular matter will tend to retain the same subject heading,
177: making it easy to recognize. If there are other header fields in
178: the message, the information found will also be used.
179: For example, if the letter had a
180: .q "To:"
181: header listing several recipients,
182: .i Mail
183: would arrange to send your replay to the same people as well.
184: Similarly, if the original message contained a
185: .q "Cc:"
186: (carbon copies to) field,
187: .i Mail
188: would send your reply to
189: .i those
190: users, too.
191: .i Mail
192: is careful, though, not too send the message to
193: .i you ,
194: even if you appear in the
195: .q "To:"
196: or
197: .q "Cc:"
198: field, unless you ask to be included explicitly. See section 4 for more
199: details.
200: .pp
201: After typing in your letter, the dialog with
202: .i Mail
203: might look like the following:
204: .(l
205: reply
206: To: root
207: Subject: Tuition fees
208:
209: Thanks for the reminder
210: EOT
211: &
212: .)l
213: .pp
214: The
215: .b reply
216: command is especially useful for sustaining extended conversations
217: over the message system, with other
218: .q listening
219: users receiving copies of the conversation. The
220: .b reply
221: command can be abbreviated to
222: .b r .
223: .pp
224: Sometimes you will receive a message that has been sent to
225: several people and wish to reply
226: .i only
227: to the person who sent it.
228: .b Reply
229: with a capital
230: .b R
231: replies to a message, but sends a copy to the sender only.
232: .pp
233: If you wish, while reading your mail, to send a message to someone,
234: but not as a reply to one of your messages, you can send the message
235: directly with the
236: .b mail
237: command, which takes as arguments the names of the recipients you wish
238: to send to. For example, to send a message to
239: .q frank,
240: you would do:
241: .(l
242: mail frank
243: This is to confirm our meeting next Friday at 4.
244: EOT
245: &
246: .)l
247: The
248: .b mail
249: command can be abbreviated to
250: .b m .
251: .pp
252: Normally, each message you receive is saved in the file
253: .i mbox
254: in your login directory at the time you leave
255: .i Mail .
256: Often,
257: however, you will not want to save a particular message you
258: have received because it is only of passing interest. To avoid
259: saving a message in
260: .i mbox
261: you can delete it using the
262: .b delete
263: command. In our example,
264: .(l
265: delete 1
266: .)l
267: will prevent
268: .i Mail
269: from saving message 1 (from root) in
270: .i mbox .
271: In addition to not saving deleted messages,
272: .i Mail
273: will not let
274: you type them, either. The effect is to make the message disappear
275: altogether, along with its number. The
276: .b delete
277: command can be abbreviated to simply
278: .b d .
279: .pp
280: Many features of
281: .i Mail
282: can be tailored to your liking with the
283: .b set
284: command. The
285: .b set
286: command has two forms, depending on whether you are setting
287: a
288: .i binary
289: option or a
290: .i valued
291: option.
292: Binary options are either on or off. For example, the
293: .q ask
294: option informs
295: .i Mail
296: that each time you send a message, you want it to prompt you for
297: a subject header, to be included in the message.
298: To set the
299: .q ask
300: option, you would type
301: .(l
302: set ask
303: .)l
304: .pp
305: Another useful
306: .i Mail
307: option is
308: .q hold.
309: Unless told otherwise,
310: .i Mail
311: moves the messages from your system mailbox to the file
312: .i mbox
313: in your home directory when you leave
314: .i Mail .
315: If you want
316: .i Mail
317: to keep your letters in the system mailbox instead, you can set the
318: .q hold
319: option.
320: .pp
321: Valued options are values which
322: .i Mail
323: uses to adapt to your tastes. For example, the
324: .q SHELL
325: option tells
326: .i Mail
327: which shell you like to use, and is specified by
328: .(l
329: set SHELL=/bin/csh
330: .)l
331: for example. Note that no spaces are allowed in
332: .q "SHELL=/bin/csh."
333: A complete list of the
334: .i Mail
335: options appears in section 5.
336: .pp
337: Another important valued option is
338: .q crt.
339: If you use a fast video terminal, you will find that when you
340: print long messages, they fly by too quickly for you to read them.
341: With the
342: .q crt
343: option, you can make
344: .i Mail
345: print any message larger than a given number of lines by sending
346: it through the paging program
347: .i more .
348: For example, most CRT users should do:
349: .(l
350: set crt=24
351: .)l
352: to paginate messages that will not fit on their screens.
353: .i More
354: prints a screenful of information, then types --MORE--. Type
355: a space to see the next screenful.
356: .pp
357: Another adaptation to user needs that
358: .i Mail
359: provides is that of
360: .i aliases .
361: An alias is simply a name which stands for one or more
362: real user names.
363: .i Mail
364: sent to an alias is really sent to the list of real users
365: associated with it. For example, an alias can be defined for the
366: members of a project, so that you can send mail to the whole project
367: by sending mail to just a single name. The
368: .b alias
369: command in
370: .i Mail
371: defines an alias. Suppose that the users in a project are
372: named Sam, Sally, Steve, and Susan. To define an alias called
373: .q project
374: for them, you would use the
375: .i Mail
376: command:
377: .(l
378: alias project sam sally steve susan
379: .)l
380: The
381: .b alias
382: command can also be used to provide a convenient name for someone
383: whose user name is inconvenient. For example, if a user named
384: .q "Bob Anderson"
385: had the login name
386: .q anderson,"
387: you might want to use:
388: .(l
389: alias bob anderson
390: .)l
391: so that you could send mail to the shorter name,
392: .q bob.
393: .pp
394: While the
395: .b alias
396: and
397: .b set
398: commands allow you to customize
399: .i Mail ,
400: they have the drawback that they must be retyped each time you enter
401: .i Mail .
402: To make them more convenient to use,
403: .i Mail
404: always looks for two files when it is invoked. It first reads
405: a system wide file
406: .q /usr/lib/Mail.rc,
407: then a user specific file,
408: .q .mailrc,
409: which is found in the user's home directory.
410: The system wide file
411: is maintained by the system administrator and
412: contains
413: .b set
414: commands that are applicable to all users of the system.
415: The
416: .q .mailrc
417: file is usually used by each user to set options the way he likes
418: and define individual aliases.
419: For example, my .mailrc file looks like this:
420: .(l
421: set ask nosave SHELL=/bin/csh
422: .)l
423: As you can see, it is possible to set many options in the
424: same
425: .b set
426: command. The
427: .q nosave
428: option is described in section 5.
429: .pp
430: Mail aliasing is implemented
431: at the system-wide level
432: by the mail delivery
433: system
434: .i delivermail .
435: These aliases are stored in the file /usr/lib/aliases and are
436: accessible to all users of the system.
437: The lines in /usr/lib/aliases are of
438: the form:
439: .(l
440: alias: name\*<1\*>, name\*<2\*>, name\*<3\*>
441: .)l
442: where
443: .i alias
444: is the mailing list name and the
445: .i name\*<i\*>
446: are the members of the list. Long lists can be continued onto the next
447: line by starting the next line with a space or tab. Remember that you
448: must execute the shell command
449: .i newaliases
450: after editing /usr/lib/aliases since the delivery system
451: uses an indexed file created by
452: .i newaliases .
453: .pp
454: We have seen that
455: .i Mail
456: can be invoked with command line arguments which are people
457: to send the message to, or with no arguments to read mail.
458: Specifying the
459: .rb \-f
460: flag on the command line causes
461: .i Mail
462: to read messages from a file other than your system mailbox.
463: For example, if you have a collection of messages in
464: the file
465: .q letters
466: you can use
467: .i Mail
468: to read them with:
469: .(l
470: % Mail \-f letters
471: .)l
472: You can use all
473: the
474: .i Mail
475: commands described in this document to examine, modify, or delete
476: messages from your
477: .q letters
478: file, which will be rewritten when you leave
479: .i Mail
480: with the
481: .b quit
482: command described below.
483: .pp
484: Since mail that you read is saved in the file
485: .i mbox
486: in your home directory by default, you can read
487: .i mbox
488: in your home directory by using simply
489: .(l
490: % Mail \-f
491: .)l
492: .pp
493: Normally, messages that you examine using the
494: .b type
495: command are saved in the file
496: .q mbox
497: in your home directory if you leave
498: .i Mail
499: with the
500: .b quit
501: command described below.
502: If you wish to retain a message in your system mailbox
503: you can use the
504: .b preserve
505: command to tell
506: .i Mail
507: to leave it there.
508: The
509: .b preserve
510: command accepts a list of message numbers, just like
511: .b type
512: and may be abbreviated to
513: .b pre .
514: .pp
515: Messages in your system mailbox that you do not examine are
516: normally retained in your system mailbox automatically.
517: If you wish to have such a message saved in
518: .i mbox
519: without reading it, you may use the
520: .b mbox
521: command to have them so saved. For example,
522: .(l
523: mbox 2
524: .)l
525: in our example would cause the second message (from sam)
526: to be saved in
527: .i mbox
528: when the
529: .b quit
530: command is executed.
531: .b Mbox
532: is also the way to direct messages to your
533: .i mbox
534: file if you have set the
535: .q hold
536: option described above.
537: .b Mbox
538: can be abbreviated to
539: .b mb .
540: .pp
541: When you have perused all the messages of interest, you can leave
542: .i Mail
543: with the
544: .b quit
545: command, which saves the messages you have typed but not
546: deleted in the file
547: .i mbox
548: in your login directory. Deleted messages are discarded irretrievably,
549: and messages left untouched are preserved in your system mailbox so
550: that you will see them the next time you type:
551: .(l
552: % Mail
553: .)l
554: The
555: .b quit
556: command can be abbreviated to simply
557: .b q .
558: .pp
559: If you wish for some reason to leave
560: .i Mail
561: quickly without altering either your system mailbox or
562: .i mbox ,
563: you can type the
564: .b x
565: command (short for
566: .b exit ),
567: which will immediately return you to the Shell without changing anything.
568: .pp
569: If, instead, you want to execute a Shell command without leaving
570: .i Mail ,
571: you
572: can type the command preceded by an exclamation point, just as in the
573: text editor. Thus, for instance:
574: .(l
575: !date
576: .)l
577: will print the current date without leaving
578: .i Mail .
579: .pp
580: Finally, the
581: .b help
582: command is available to print out a brief summary of the
583: .i Mail
584: commands, using only the single character command abbreviations.
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