Name

msh − MH shell

Syntax

msh [−prompt string] [−scan] [−noscan] [−topcur] [−notopcur] [file] [−help]

Description

The command msh is an interactive program that implements a subset of the normal MH commands operating on a single file in packf format.  That is, msh is used to read a file that contains a number of messages, as opposed to the standard MH style of reading a number of files, each file being a separate message in a folder.

The chief advantage of msh is that, unlike the normal MH style, it allows a file to have more than one message in it. In addition, msh can be used on other files, such as message archives which have been packed (see packf().)).

When invoked, msh reads the named file, and enters a command loop. You can type most of the normal MH commands. The syntax and semantics of these commands typed to msh are identical to their MH counterparts.  In cases where the nature of msh would be inconsistent with the way MH works (for example, specifying a +folder with some commands), msh will duly inform you. The commands that msh currently supports are:

ali      burst    comp    dist     folder
forw     inc      mark    mhmail   msgchk
next     packf    pick    prev     refile
repl     rmm      scan    send     show
sortm    whatnow  whom

In addition, msh has a help command which gives a brief overview of all the msh options.  To terminate msh, either type CTRL-D, or use the quit command.

If the file is writable and has been modified, then using quit will ask you if the file should be updated.

Options

The −prompt string switch sets the prompting string for msh.

You may wish to use an alternative MH profile for the commands that msh executes; see mh-profile() for details of the $MH envariable.

A redirection facility is supported by msh. Commands may be followed by one of the following:

If file starts with a tilde (~), then a Cshell-like expansion takes place.  Note that command is interpreted by sh(.). Also note that msh does not support history substitutions, variable substitutions, or alias substitutions. 

When parsing commands to the left of any redirection symbol, msh will honor the backslash ( \) as the quote next-character symbol, and double quote (") as quote-word delimiters. All other input tokens are separated by whitespace (spaces and tabs).

The following defaults are used by msh:

file defaults to ./msgbox
−prompt (msh) 
−noscan
−notopcur

The argument to the −prompt switch must be interpreted as a single token by the shell that invokes msh. Therefore, you should place the argument to this switch inside double-quotes.

There is a strict limit of messages per file in packf format which msh can handle. Usually, this limit is 1000 messages.

Please remember that msh is not the cshell, and that a lot of the facilities provided by the latter are not present in the former.

In particular, msh does not understand back-quoting, so the only effective way to use pick inside msh is to always use the −seq select switch.  If you put the line

pick: −seq select −list

in your mh_profile file, pick will work equally well from both the shell and msh.

Files

Profile Components