READMAIL(1)
NAME
readmail − read mail from specified mailbox
SYNOPSIS
readmail [ −p ] [ −n ] [ −f filename ] [ −h ]
readmail [ −p ] [ −n ] [ −f filename ] [ −h ] number-list
readmail [ −p ] [ −n ] [ −f filename ] [ −h ] pattern
DESCRIPTION
Readmail is a program that gives you the functionality of the mailx(1) "~r" command from the editor of your choice. There are three different ways of using the program.
First off, if you are actually creating a reply to a message from within elm(1) then readmail without any arguments will include a summary of the headers and the body of the message being replied to. If the you aren’t currently editing a message the program will return an error.
Secondly, if you want to include certain messages, you can specify them by listing their ordinal locations in the mail file (that is, their "message numbers") up to 25 at a time. The meta-number ’$’ is understood to mean the last message in the mailfile. Similarly, ’*’ is understood to represent every message in the file (that is, 1 2 3 4 5 ... $)
Finally, you can also specify a pattern that occurs in one of the messages as a way of including it. This pattern can be typed in directly (no quotes) if the words are separated by a single space in the actual message. The pattern matching is case sensitive, so "Hello" and "hello" are not the same thing.
Other options are:
−f folder This indicates that you would rather use the file specified for the operations specified rather than the incoming mailbox.
−h This instructs the program to include the entire header of the matched message or messages when displaying their text. (default is to display the From: Date: and Subject: lines only)
−n This instructs the program to exclude all headers. This is used mostly for extracting files mailed and such.
−p This indicates that the program should put form-feeds (control-L) between message headers. This is very useful for printing sets of messages.
EXAMPLES
First off, to use this from within vi(1) to include the text of the current message at the end of the edit buffer, you could use the command;
!!readmail
(when you hit the second ’!’, the editor will put you at the bottom of the screen with the ’!’ prompt)
Another convenient use of the command is via a csh(1) alias similar to:
alias rd ’readmail $ | page’
which then makes it very easy, in conjunction with a program like newmail(1) to peruse your mail as it arrives without necessarily spending the time involved in invoking a mail system.
AUTHOR
readmail was developed by Hewlett-Packard Company.
FILES
/usr/mail/username
The incoming mailbox
$HOME/.elm/readmail
The temporary file for elm(1)
SEE ALSO
elm(1), mailx(1), newmail(1), vi(1).
NOTE
For performance reasons when the program is given a list of message numbers to display, it will sort them in ascending order, so "1 3 2" would output identically to "1 2 3".
Hewlett-Packard Company — HP-UX Release 7.0: Sept 1989