.\"
.TH PICK %manext1% "%nmhdate%" MH.6.8 [%nmhversion%]
.SH NAME
-pick \- search for messages by content
+pick \- select messages by content
+scan \- produce a one line per message scan listing
.SH SYNOPSIS
.HP 5
.na
.IR date ]
.RB [ \-datefield
.IR field ]
+.RB [ \-format
+.IR formatfile ]
+.RB [ \-width
+.IR columns ]
+.RB [ \-thread
+.RI [ +folder ] messages "|" files ]
+.RB [ \-file
+.IR mboxfilename ]
.RB [ \-sequence
.I name
\&...]
.RB [ \-list " | " \-nolist ]
.RB [ \-Version ]
.RB [ \-help ]
+.PP
+.HP 5
+.B scan
+is equivalent to
+.B pick -format scan.default
.ad
.PP
typical usage:
.PP
.RS 5
.nf
-scan\0`pick\0\-from\0jones`
+scan\0\-from\0jones`
pick\0\-to\0holloway\0\-sequence\0select
show\0`pick\0\-before\0friday`
.fi
primitives are available: pattern matching and date constraint
operations.
.PP
-A modified
-.BR grep (1)
+The default
+.BR regex (7)
is used to perform the matching, so the
-full regular expression (see
-.BR ed (1))
-facility is available
+full regular expression facility is available
within
-.IR pattern .
+.IR pattern.
With
.BR \-search ,
.I pattern
-is used directly, and with the others, the grep pattern constructed is:
-.PP
-.RS 5
-`component[ \\t]*:\&.*pattern'
-.RE
-.PP
-This means that the pattern specified for a
-.B \-search
-will be found
-everywhere in the message, including the header and the body, while
-the other pattern matching requests are limited to the single specified
-component. The expression
-.PP
-.RS 5
-`\-\|\-component\ pattern'
-.RE
-.PP
-is a shorthand for specifying
-.PP
-.RS 5
-`\-search `component[ \\t]*:\&.*pattern'\ '
-.RE
+is used directly, but only for the body of the Mail.
+With the others,
+.B pick
+compares the header field name case insensitive
+and the tries to match the field body with the
+.IR pattern.
.PP
+With
+.BR --componend
+you can specify the exact header field name you are looking for.
It is used to pick a component which is not one of `To:',
`Cc:', `Date:', `From:', or `Subject:'.
An example is
.RB ` "pick\0\-\|\-reply\-to\0pooh" '.
.PP
-Pattern matching is performed on a per\-line basis. Within the header
-of the message, each component is treated as one long line, but in the
-body, each line is separate. Lower\-case letters in the search pattern
-will match either lower or upper case in the message, while upper case
-will match only upper case.
+Pattern matching is performed on a per\-header-field basis. Within the header
+of the message, each field is treated as one long line, but in the
+body, each line is separate. The
+.IR pattern
+will match any case.
.PP
Note that since the
.B \-date
week are judged to refer to a day in the past (e.g., telling \fIpick\fR
`saturday' on a `tuesday' means `last\ saturday'
not `this\ saturday').
-.PP
+Further more, dates in a simplified ISO 8601/RFC 3339 style (e.g.
+`YYYY-MM-DD' or `YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss') are accepted.
Finally, in addition to these special specifications,
.B pick
will
-also honor a specification of the form `\-dd', which means
-`dd days ago'.
+also honor a date specification of the form `\-\fIddd\fR', which means
+`\fIddd\fR days ago'.
+For example,
+.PP
+.RS 5
+.nf
+pick\0\-after\0\-30
+.fi
+.RE
+.PP
+identifies the messages of the last thirty days.
.PP
.B Pick
supports complex boolean operations on the searching primitives
parentheses in logical expressions.
.PP
If no search criteria are given, all the messages specified on the
-command line are selected (this defaults to `all').
+command line are selected (this defaults to `a').
.PP
Once the search has been performed, if the
.B \-list
.B extremely
useful for
quickly generating arguments for other
-.B nmh
+.B mmh
programs by using the
`backquoting' syntax of the shell. For example, the command
.PP
.RS 5
-scan\0`pick\0+todo\0\-after\0`31 Mar 83 0123 PST'`
+show\0`pick\0+todo\0\-after\0`31 Mar 83 0123 PST'`
.RE
.PP
says to
-.B scan
+.B show
those messages in the indicated folder which meet the
appropriate criterion. Note that since
.BR pick 's
context changes
are written out prior to
-.BR scan 's
+.BR show 's
invocation, you need not give
the folder argument to
-.B scan
+.B show
as well.
.PP
The
.B mark
uses them.
+.B Scan
+and
+.B pick
+produces a one\-line\-per\-message listing of the specified and selected
+folder or messages.
+The default format is for
+.B pick
+is to print the message number for each message.
+The default
+.B Scan
+line contains the message number
+(name), the date, the `From:' field and the `Subject' field.
+The following example shows the default output of
+.B scan
+.PP
+.RS 5
+.nf
+.ta \w'15+- 'u +\w'07/\|05x 'u +\w'Dcrocker 'u
+15+ 10/\|05 crocker nned
+16\- 10/\|05 crocker message id format
+18 10/\|06 brien Re: Exit status from mkdir
+19 10/\|07*brien `scan' listing format in mmh
+.fi
+.RE
+.PP
+The `+' on message 15 indicates that it is the current message.
+The `\-' on message 16 indicates that it has been replied to, as indicated
+by a `Replied:' component (produced by the
+.B \-annotate
+switch
+to the
+.B repl
+command).
+The `*' on message 19 indicates that no `Date:' header was
+present. The time of last modification of the message is given instead.
+.B Scan
+actually reads each of the specified messages and parses them to extract
+the desired fields. During parsing, appropriate error messages will be
+produced if there are format errors in any of the messages.
+.PP
+By default,
+.B scan
+will decode RFC-2047 (MIME) encoding in
+these scan listings.
+.B Scan
+will only decode these fields if your
+terminal can natively display the character set used in the encoding.
+You should set the MM_CHARSET environment variable to your native
+character set, if it is not US-ASCII. See the mh-profile(5) man
+page for details about this environment variable.
+.PP
+The
+.B \-file
+.I filename
+switch allows the user to obtain a
+.B scan
+listing of a maildrop file as produced by
+.BR packf .
+This listing
+includes every message in the file (you can't scan individual messages).
+.PP
+The switch
+.B \-width
+.I columns
+may be used to specify the width of
+the scan line. The default is to use the width of the terminal.
+.PP
+The command:
+.PP
+.RS 5
+(scan | pr ; show a \-showproc pr) | lpr
+.RE
+.PP
+produces a scan listing of the current folder,
+followed by a formatted listing of all messages in the folder, one
+per page. Omitting
+.RB ` "\-showproc\ pr" '
+will cause the messages to be
+concatenated, separated by a one\-line header and two blank lines.
+.PP
+To override the output format used by
+.BR scan ,
+the
+.B \-form
+.I file
+switch is used. This permits individual fields of
+the scan listing to be extracted with ease.
+.I file
+is either the name of a format file or a format string directly,
+if prepended with an equal sign `='.
+See
+.BR mh\-format (5)
+for the details.
+.PP
+In addition to the standard
+.BR mh\-format (5)
+escapes,
+.B scan
+also recognizes the following additional
+.I component
+escapes:
+.PP
+.RS 5
+.nf
+.ta \w'Dtimenow 'u +\w'Returns 'u
+.I "Escape Returns Description
+dtimenow date the current date
+folder string the name of the current folder
+.fi
+.RE
+.PP
+If no date header is present in the message, the
+.I function
+escapes
+which operate on
+.RB { date }
+will return values for the date of last
+modification of the message file itself. This feature is handy for
+scanning a draft folder, as message drafts usually aren't allowed
+to have dates in them.
+.PP
+.B scan
+will update the
+.B mmh
+context prior to starting the listing,
+so interrupting a long
+.B scan
+listing preserves the new context.
+.B nmh
+purists hate this idea.
+
.SH FILES
.fc ^ ~
.nf
.ta 2.4i
.ta \w'ExtraBigProfileName 'u
^Path:~^To determine the user's mail storage
+^Alternate\-Mailboxes:~^To determine the user's mailboxes
^Current\-Folder:~^To find the default current folder
.fi
.SH DEFAULTS
.nf
.RB ` +folder "' defaults to the current folder"
-.RB ` msgs "' defaults to all"
+.RB ` msgs "' defaults to all messages"
.RB ` "\-datefield date" '
.RB ` \-zero '
.RB ` \-list "' is the default if no `\-sequence', `\-nolist' otherwise"
+.RB ` "\-format pick\.default" "' if the program is called with scan `scan.default' is used
.fi
.SH CONTEXT
something like:
.PP
.RS 5
-show\0`pick\0last:20\0\-seq\0fear`
+show\0`pick\0l:20\0\-seq\0fear`
.RE
.PP
instead of typing
.PP
.RS 5
.nf
-mark\0\-add\0\-nozero\0\-seq\0fear\0last:20
+mark\0\-add\0\-nozero\0\-seq\0fear\0l:20
show\0fear
.fi
.RE
.PP
-Finally, timezones used to be ignored when comparing dates: they aren't
+Also, timezones used to be ignored when comparing dates: they aren't
any more.
-
+.PP
+In
+.B MH
+,
+.B nmh
+and old
+.B mmh
+versions scan and pick where two different tools. So instand of typing
+.PP
+.RS 5
+.nf
+scan\0\-from\0philipp
+.fi
+.RE
+.PP
+you had typed
+.PP
+.RS 5
+.nf
+scan\0`pick\0\-from\0philipp`
+.fi
+.RE
+.PP
+With the default config the old style usage is still supported, so
+you can write scripts for both mmh and nmh.
.SH "HELPFUL HINTS"
Use
.RB ` "pick sequence \-list" '
backquoting
.B pick
is empty. In the case of
-.B nmh
+.B mmh
programs,
the outer command now acts as if the default `msg' or `msgs' should be
used (e.g., `all' in the case of
outputs the illegal message number `0'
when it fails. This lets the outer command fail gracefully as well.
.PP
+To account for this case when combining
+.B pick
+with regular shell tools, filter out the message number `0'.
+For example, do
+.PP
+.RS 5
+pick\0...\0|\0fgrep\0-vx\0\&0\0|\0wc\0-l
+.RE
+.PP
+to count the number of messages picked.
+.PP
The pattern syntax `[l-r]' is not supported; each letter to be
matched must be included within the square brackets.