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SCAN(1) 		     General Commands Manual			 SCAN(1)

NAME
     scan - produce a summary listing of nmh messages

SYNOPSIS
     scan [-help] [-version] [+folder] [msgs] [-clear | -noclear] [-form format-
	  file] [-format string] [-header | -noheader] [-width columns] [-re-
	  verse | -noreverse] [-file filename]

DESCRIPTION
     scan  produces  a	one-line-per-message  listing of the specified folder or
     messages.	Each scan line contains the message number (name), the date, the
     "From:" field, the "Subject" field, and, if room allows, some of  the  body
     of the message.  For example:

	  15+  10/05 crocker	nned  <<Last week I asked some of
	  16-  10/05 crocker	message id format  <<I recommend
	  18   10/06 brien	Re: Exit status from mkdir
	  19   10/07*brien	"scan" listing format in nmh

     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 -annotate  switch  to  the  repl
     command).

     The  `*'  on  message 19 indicates that no "Date:" header was present.  The
     time of last modification of the message is given instead.

     If there is sufficient room left on the scan line after  the  subject,  the
     line  will  be filled with text from the body, preceded by "<<", and termi-
     nated by ">>" if the body is sufficiently short.  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.

     By  default,  scan will decode RFC 2047 (MIME) encoding in these scan list-
     ings.  scan will only decode these fields if  your  terminal  can	natively
     display  the character set used in the encoding.  You should set the appro-
     priate locale(1) environment variables to your native character set, if  it
     is  not  US-ASCII.  See locale(1) for more details on the appropriate envi-
     ronment variables.

     The switch -reverse, makes scan list the messages in reverse order.

     The -file filename switch allows the user to obtain a  scan  listing  of  a
     mail drop.  This listing includes every message in the mail drop (you can't
     scan  individual  messages).   The switch -reverse is ignored with this op-
     tion.  If filename is a file, it can be in mbox or MMDF format, as produced
     by packf.	If filename is a directory, it is considered to  be  in  Maildir
     format.

     The  switch  -width  columns  may	be used to specify the width of the scan
     line.  The default is to use the width of the terminal.

     The -header switch produces a header line prior to the scan listing.   Cur-
     rently,  the  name  of  the folder and the current date and time are output
     (see the HISTORY section for more information).

     If the -clear switch is used and scan's output is directed to  a  terminal,
     then  scan will consult the environment variables $TERM and $TERMCAP to de-
     termine your terminal type in order to find out how  to  clear  the  screen
     prior  to	exiting.   If the -clear switch is used and scan's output is not
     directed to a terminal (e.g., a pipe or a file),  then  scan  will  send  a
     formfeed prior to exiting.

     For example, the command:

	  (scan -clear -header; show all -show pr -f) | lpr

     produces a scan listing of the current folder, followed by a formfeed, fol-
     lowed  by	a formatted listing of all messages in the folder, one per page.
     Omitting "-show pr -f" will cause the messages to	be  concatenated,  sepa-
     rated by a one-line header and two blank lines.

     To  override  the	output	format used by scan, the -format string or -form
     file switches are used.  This permits individual fields of the scan listing
     to be extracted with ease.  The string is simply a format	string	and  the
     file is simply a format file.  See mh-format(5) for the details.

     In  addition to the standard mh-format(5) escapes, scan also recognizes the
     following additional component escapes:

	  Escape    Returns  Description
	  body	    string   the (compressed) first part of the body
	  dtimenow  date     the current date
	  folder    string   the name of the current folder

     {body} returns a string without MIME decoding, i.e. the MIME boundary sepa-
     rator may be the first text shown.

     If no date header is present in the message, the function escapes which op-
     erate on {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.

     The /usr/local/etc/nmh directory contains several format files as	examples
     of customized scan output.

     scan  will  update the nmh context prior to starting the listing, so inter-
     rupting a long scan listing preserves the new context.   nmh  purists  hate
     this idea.

FILES
     $HOME/.mh_profile			  The user profile

PROFILE COMPONENTS
     Path:		  To determine the user's nmh directory
     Alternate-Mailboxes: To determine the user's mailboxes
     Current-Folder:	  To find the default current folder

SEE ALSO
     pick(1), show(1), mh-format(5)

DEFAULTS
     `+folder' defaults to the current folder
     `msgs' defaults to all
     `-format' defaulted as described above
     `-noheader'
     `-width' defaulted to the width of the terminal

CONTEXT
     If a folder is given, it will become the current folder.

HISTORY
     Prior  to	using  the  format  string mechanism, -header used to generate a
     heading saying what each column in the listing was.  Format strings prevent
     this from happening.

BUGS
     The value of each component escape is set by scan to the  contents  of  the
     first message header scan encounters with the corresponding component name;
     any following headers with the same component name are ignored.

nmh-1.8+dev			   2020-02-17				 SCAN(1)

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