[PLUG] The "mail" comand and searching the list archives.

Keith Morse kgmorse at mpcu.com
Thu Jul 31 17:33:02 UTC 2003


I thought I saw on this list how to redirect the output of mail's message 
listing but can no longer find reference to it.

Example.  On a host that has the "mail" command, I run it as that user.  
Entering a "?" I get the following.

? ?
?               print this help message
#               display message number #
-               print previous
+               next (no delete)
! cmd           execute cmd
<CR>            next (no delete)
a               position at and read newly arrived mail
d [#]           delete message # (default current message)
dp              delete current message and print the next
dq              delete current message and exit
h a             display all headers
h d             display headers of letters scheduled for deletion
h [#]           display headers around # (default current message)
m user          mail (and delete) current message to user
n               next (no delete)
p               print (override any warnings of binary content)
P               override default 'brief' mode and display ALL header lines
q, ^D           quit
r [args]        reply to (and delete) current letter via mail [args]
s [files]       save (and delete) current message (default mbox)
u [#]           undelete message # (default current message)
w [files]       save (and delete) current message without header
x               exit without changing mail
y [files]       save (and delete) current message (default mbox)
? 


Then doing a header list "h a" I see there a 23 messages.  Reading 
message number 15, the message scrolls by rather quickly.  I thought I saw 
somebody post a sequence like this recently.

. | ! more

to pass the output from mail to a system command such as "more".  But I'll 
be dogged if'n if I can find the right voodoo to make it happens.  Google 
is being onery with me and not honoring quotes resulting hundreds of 
thousands of hits.



Next, is there a preferred method of searching this mail lists archive 
from some type of search engine?  The list archive web page seems to only 
provide access to the archive in web form but no way to specific searches.





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