NAME

sortm − sort messages

SYNOPSIS

sortm ­[+folder] ­[msgs] ­[−datefield field] ­[−textfield field] ­[−notextfield] ­[−limit days] ­[−nolimit] ­[−verbose] ­[−noverbose] ­[−help]

DESCRIPTION

Sortm sorts the specified messages in the named folder according to the chronological order of the “Date:” field of each message. 
 
The ‘−verbose’ switch directs sortm to tell the user the general actions that it is taking to place the folder in sorted order. 
 
The ‘−datefield field’ switch tells sortm the name of the field to use when making the date comparison.  If the user has a special field in each message, such as “BB−Posted:” or “Delivery−Date:”, then the ‘−datefield’ switch can be used to direct sortm which field to examine.  The ‘−textfield field’ switch causes sortm to sort messages by the specified text field.  If this field is “subject”, any leading "re:" is stripped off.  In any case, all characters except letters and numbers are stripped and the resulting strings are sorted datefield−major, textfield−minor, using a case insensitive comparison.  With ‘−textfield field’, if ‘−limit days’ is specified, messages with similar textfields that are dated within ‘days’ of each other appear together.  Specifying ‘−nolimit’ makes the limit infinity.  With ‘−limit 0’, the sort is instead made textfield−major, date−minor.  For example, to order a folder by date-major, subject-minor, use:

sortm -textfield subject +folder ^$HOME/.mh_profile~^The user profile ^Path:~^To determine the user’s MH directory ^Current−Folder:~^To find the default current folder folder (1) ‘+folder’ defaults to the current folder ‘msgs’ defaults to all ‘−datefield date’ ‘−notextfield’ ‘−noverbose’ ‘−nolimit’ If a folder is given, it will become the current folder.  If the current message is moved, sortm will preserve its status as current.  Timezones used to be ignored when comparing dates: they aren’t any more.  Messages which were in the folder, but not specified by ‘msgs’, used to be moved to the end of the folder; now such messages are left untouched.  Previously, sortm would try to fill any gaps in a folder within the range of messages it sorted.  To improve performance, sortm now minimizes the number of message moves.  To pack a folder, use “folder −pack” instead. If sortm encounters a message without a date−field, or if the message has a date−field that sortm cannot parse, then sortm attempts to keep the message in the same relative position.  This does not always work.  For instance, if the first message encountered lacks a date which can be parsed, then it will usually be placed at the end of the messages being sorted. 
 
When sortm complains about a message which it can’t temporally order, it complains about the message number prior to sorting.  It should indicate what the message number will be after sorting. 

NEWS-OSRelease 4.1C