BURST(1)                       BSD                       BURST(1)



NAME
     burst - explode digests into messages

SYNOPSIS
     burst [+folder] [msgs] [-inplace] [-noinplace] [-quiet]
          [-noquiet] [-verbose] [-noverbose] [-help]

DESCRIPTION
     Burst considers the specified messages in the named folder
     to be Internet digests, and explodes them in that folder.

     If `-inplace' is given, each digest is replaced by the
     "table of contents" for the digest (the original digest is
     removed).  Burst then renumbers all of the messages
     following the digest in the folder to make room for each of
     the messages contained within the digest.  These messages
     are placed immediately after the digest.

     If `-noinplace' is given, each digest is preserved, no table
     of contents is produced, and the messages contained within
     the digest are placed at the end of the folder.  Other
     messages are not tampered with in any way.

     The `-quiet' switch directs burst to be silent about
     reporting messages that are not in digest format.

     The `-verbose' switch directs burst to tell the user the
     general actions that it is taking to explode the digest.

     It turns out that burst works equally well on forwarded
     messages and blind-carbon-copies as on Internet digests,
     provided that the former two were generated by forw or send.

FILES
     $HOME/.mh_profile                 The user profile

PROFILE COMPONENTS
     Path:                To determine the user's MH directory
     Current-Folder:      To find the default current folder
     Msg-Protect:         To set mode when creating a new message

SEE ALSO
     Proposed Standard for Message Encapsulation (aka RFC-934),
     inc(1), msh(1), pack(1)

DEFAULTS
     `+folder' defaults to the current folder
     `msgs' defaults to cur
     `-noinplace'
     `-noquiet'
     `-noverbose'

CONTEXT
     If a folder is given, it will become the current folder.  If
     `-inplace' is given, then the first message burst becomes
     the current message.  This leaves the context ready for a
     show of the table of contents of the digest, and a next to
     see the first message of the digest.  If `-noinplace' is
     given, then the first message extracted from the first
     digest burst becomes the current message.  This leaves the
     context in a similar, but not identical, state to the

     context achieved when using `-inplace'.

BUGS
     The burst program enforces a limit on the number of messages
     which may be burst from a single message.  This number is on
     the order of 1000 messages.  There is usually no limit on
     the number of messages which may reside in the folder after
     the bursting.

     Although burst uses a sophisticated algorithm to determine
     where one encapsulated message ends and another begins, not
     all digestifying programs use an encapsulation algorithm.
     In degenerate cases, this usually results in burst finding
     an encapsulation boundary prematurely and splitting a single
     encapsulated message into two or more messages.  These
     erroneous digestifying programs should be fixed.

     Furthermore, any text which appears after the last
     encapsulated message is not placed in a seperate message by
     burst.  In the case of digestified messages, this text is
     usally an "End of digest" string.  As a result of this
     possibly un-friendly behavior on the part of burst, note
     that when the `-inplace' option is used, this trailing
     information is lost.  In practice, this is not a problem
     since correspondents usually place remarks in text prior to
     the first encapsulated message, and this information is not
     lost.