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SORTM(1) General Commands Manual SORTM(1) NAME sortm - sort nmh messages SYNOPSIS sortm [-help] [-version] [+folder] [msgs] [-all | -noall] [-datefield field] [-textfield field] [-notextfield] [-limit days] [-nolimit] [-check | -nocheck] [-empty | -noempty] [-verbose | -noverbose] DESCRIPTION sortm sorts the specified messages in the named folder according to the chronological order of the "Date:" field of each message. If no messages are specified, the default is all messages in the folder. However, if no messages are specified and the -noall switch is enabled, then sortm reports that as an error and exits with non-zero status. -noall is most useful in the user's profile, to avoid inadver- tent sorting of an entire folder. The -all switch can then be used on the command line to disable it. Of course, a message specification of all can be used in any case. The -verbose switch directs sortm to tell the user the general actions that it is taking to place the folder in sorted order. The -datefield field switch tells sortm the name of the field to use when making the date comparison. If the user has a special field in each message, such as "BB-Posted:" or "Delivery-Date:", then the -date- field switch can be used to direct sortm which field to examine. The -textfield field switch causes sortm to sort messages by the speci- fied text field. All characters except letters and numbers are stripped and the resulting strings are sorted datefield-major, textfield-minor, using a case insensitive comparison. If this field is "subject", any leading "re:" is stripped off. With -textfield field, if -limit days is specified, messages with the same textfields that are dated within `days' of each other appear to- gether. Specifying -nolimit makes the limit infinity. With -limit 0, the sort is instead simply textfield-major. For example, to order a folder by date-major, grouping messages with the same subject on the same date together, use: sortm -textfield subject +folder sortm always issues a warning for each message that is missing a "Date:" field, has a "Date:" field that cannot be parsed, or has a for- mat error in any header field. With the -check switch, sortm inhibits all modifications to the folder if there are any such messages, and ex- its with non-zero status. With the default of -nocheck, sortm sorts messages with a missing or invalid "Date:" field using their file modi- fication times. When asked to sort an empty sequence, sortm reports an error by default and exits with nonzero status. With the -empty switch, no error is re- ported in this case and the exit status is 0. The default behavior may also be requested explicitly using the -noempty switch. When ordering messages based on their dates, if they have the same dates, their original message order is preserved. FILES $HOME/.mh_profile The user profile PROFILE COMPONENTS Path: To determine the user's nmh directory Current-Folder: To find the default current folder SEE ALSO folder(1) DEFAULTS `+folder' defaults to the current folder `msgs' defaults to all without -noall, has no default with -noall `-all' `-datefield' defaults to date `-notextfield' `-noverbose' `-nolimit' `-nocheck' CONTEXT If a folder is given, it will become the current folder. If the cur- rent message is moved, sortm will preserve its status as current. HISTORY Timezones used to be ignored when comparing dates: they aren't any more. Messages which were in the folder, but not specified by `msgs', used to be moved to the end of the folder; now such messages are left un- touched. sortm sometimes did not preserve the message numbering in a folder (e.g., messages 1, 3, and 5, might have been renumbered to 1, 2, 3 af- ter sorting). This was a bug, and has been fixed. To compress the message numbering in a folder, use "folder -pack" as always. BUGS When sortm complains about a message which it can't temporally order, it complains about the message number prior to sorting. It should in- dicate what the message number will be after sorting. nmh-1.8+dev 2014-03-23 SORTM(1)
NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | FILES | PROFILE COMPONENTS | SEE ALSO | DEFAULTS | CONTEXT | HISTORY | BUGS
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