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MAIRIXRC(5)		       File Formats Manual		     MAIRIXRC(5)

NAME
     mairixrc - configuration file for mairix(1)

SYNOPSIS
     $HOME/.mairixrc

DESCRIPTION
     The  mairixrc  file  tells  mairix where your mail folders are located.  It
     also tells mairix where the results of searches are to be written.

     mairix searches for this file at $HOME/.mairixrc unless the  -f  option  is
     used.

     The  directives base, mfolder, and database must always appear in the file.
     There must also be some folder definitions (using the maildir, mh, or mbox)
     directives.

   Comments
     Any line starting with a '#' character is treated as a comment.

   Directives
     base=base-directory
	    This defines the path to the common parent	directory  of  all  your
	    maildir folders.

     imap_server=hostname
	    If any IMAP source folders are specified or the results folder is an
	    IMAP folder, this defines the host name of the IMAP server. The port
	    is currently always 143. This option is mutually exclusive with the

     imap_pipe=shell-command
	    If any IMAP source folders are specified or the results folder is an
	    IMAP  folder,  this defines a shell command that can be used to con-
	    nect to the IMAP server and talk to it over UNIX pipes instead of  a
	    TCP/IP  connection.   This	option	is  mutually  exclusive with the
	    'imap_server' option.

     imap_username=username
	    If any IMAP source folders are specified or the results folder is an
	    IMAP folder, this defines the user name to use to log in to the IMAP
	    server.  This parameter is optional, but IMAP servers  normally  re-
	    quire  clients to log in, so it is normally necessary to specify it.
	    One example of a case where it is not required is if the 'imap_pipe'
	    option is in use the the shell command established a connection with
	    an IMAP server in pre-autenticated state.

     imap_password=password
	    If any IMAP source folders are specified or the results folder is an
	    IMAP folder, this defines the password to use to log in to the  IMAP
	    server.   This  parameter is optional, but IMAP servers normally re-
	    quire clients to log in, so it is normally necessary to specify it.

     maildir=list-of-folder-specifications
	    This is a colon-separated list of the Maildir folders  (relative  to
	    `base')  that you want indexed.  Any entry that ends `...' is recur-
	    sively scanned to find any Maildir folders underneath it.

	    More than one line starting with `maildir' can be included.  In this
	    case, mairix joins the lines together with colons as though a single
	    list of folders had been given on a single very long line.

	    Each colon-separated entry may be a wildcard.   See  the  discussion
	    under mbox (below) for the wildcard syntax.  For example

		 maildir=zzz/foo*...

	    will  match  maildir folders like these (relative to the base-direc-
	    tory)

		 zzz/foobar/xyz
		 zzz/fooquux
		 zzz/foo
		 zzz/fooabc/u/v/w

	    and

		 maildir=zzz/foo[abc]*

	    will match maildir folders like these (relative to the folder_base)

		 zzz/fooa
		 zzz/fooaaaxyz
		 zzz/foobcd
		 zzz/fooccccccc

	    If a folder name contains a colon, you can write this by  using  the
	    sequence '\:' to escape the colon.	Otherwise, the backslash charac-
	    ter  is treated normally.  (If the folder name actually contains the
	    sequence '\:', you're out of luck.)

     mh=list-of-folder-specifications
	    This is a colon-separated  list  of  the  MH  folders  (relative  to
	    `base')  that you want indexed.  Any entry that ends '...' is recur-
	    sively scanned to find any MH folders underneath it.

	    More than one line starting with 'mh'  can	be  included.	In  this
	    case, mairix joins the lines together with colons as though a single
	    list of folders had been given on a single very long line.

	    Each colon-separated entry may be a wildcard, see the discussion un-
	    der maildir (above) and mbox (below) for the syntax and semantics of
	    specifying wildcards.

	    mairix  recognizes	the types of MH folders created by the following
	    email applications:

	    *	   xmh

	    *	   sylpheed

	    *	   claws-mail

	    *	   evolution

	    *	   NNML

	    *	   Mew

     mbox=list-of-folder-specifications
	    This is a colon-separated list of  the  mbox  folders  (relative  to
	    `base') that you want indexed.

	    Each  colon-separated item in the list can be suffixed by '...'.  If
	    the item matches a regular file, that file	is  treated  as  a  mbox
	    folder  and  the '...' suffix is ignored.  If the item matches a di-
	    rectory, a recursive scan of everything  inside  that  directory  is
	    made,  and	all regular files are initially considered as mbox fold-
	    ers.  (Any directories found in this scan  are  themselves	scanned,
	    since the scan is recursive.)

	    Each  colon-separated  item may contain wildcard operators, but only
	    in its final path component.  The wildcard operators currently  sup-
	    ported are

     *
	    Match zero or more characters (each character matched is arbitrary)

     ?
	    Match exactly one arbitrary character

     [abcs-z]
	    Character  class : match a single character from the set a, b, c, s,
	    t, u, v, w, x, y and z.

	    To include a literal ']' in the class, place  it  immediately  after
	    the  opening  '['.	 To include a literal '-' in the class, place it
	    immediately before the closing ']'.

	    If these metacharacters are included in non-final  path  components,
	    they have no special meaning.

	    Here are some examples

     mbox=foo/bar*
	    matches 'foo/bar', 'foo/bar1', 'foo/barrrr' etc

     mbox=foo*/bar*
	    matches 'foo*/bar', 'foo*/bar1', 'foo*/barrrr' etc

     mbox=foo/*
	    matches 'foo/bar', 'foo/bar1', 'foo/barrrr', 'foo/foo', 'foo/x' etc

     mbox=foo...
	    matches any regular file in the tree rooted at 'foo'

     mbox=foo/*...
	    same as before

     mbox=foo/[a-z]*...
	    matches	 'foo/a',      'foo/aardvark/xxx',     'foo/zzz/foobar',
	    'foo/w/x/y/zzz', but not 'foo/A/foobar'

	    Regular files that are mbox folder candidates  are	examined  inter-
	    nally.   Only files containing standard mbox 'From ' separator lines
	    will be scanned for messages.

	    If a regular file has a name ending in '.gz', and  gzip  support  is
	    compiled  into  the  mairix  binary,  the  file will be treated as a
	    gzipped mbox.

	    If a regular file has a name ending in '.bz2', and bzip  support  is
	    compiled  into  the  mairix  binary,  the  file will be treated as a
	    bzip2'd mbox.

	    More than one line starting with 'mbox' can be  included.	In  this
	    case, mairix joins the lines together with colons as though a single
	    list of folders had been given on a single very long line.

	    mairix  performs  no  locking  of  mbox folders when it is accessing
	    them.  If a mail delivery program is modifying the mbox at the  same
	    time,  it  is likely that one or messages in the mbox will never get
	    indexed by mairix (until the database is removed and recreated  from
	    scratch, anyway.)  The assumption is that mairix will be used to in-
	    dex  archive  folders rather than incoming ones, so this is unlikely
	    to be much of a problem in reality.

	    mairix can support a maximum of 65536 separate mboxes, and a maximum
	    of 65536 messages within any one mbox.

     imap=list-of-folders
	    This is a colon-separated list of the IMAP folders that you want in-
	    dexed.

	    These folders must all be located on the same account  on  the  same
	    IMAP  server.  The	configuration  options imap_server and imap_pipe
	    specify how to connect to the IMAP server.

	    More than one line starting with 'imap' can be  included.	In  this
	    case, mairix joins the lines together with colons as though a single
	    list of folders had been given on a single very long line.

     omit=list-of-glob-patterns
	    This  is  a  colon-separated list of glob patterns for folders to be
	    omitted from the indexing.	This allows wide wildcards and recursive
	    elements to be used in the maildir,mh, andmbox directives, with  the
	    omit  option  used	to  selectively remove unwanted folders from the
	    folder lists.

	    Within the glob patterns, a single '*' matches any sequence of char-
	    acters other than '/'.  However '**' matches any sequence of charac-
	    ters including '/'.  This allows glob  patterns  to  be  constructed
	    which  have  a wildcard for just one directory component, or for any
	    number of directory components.

	    The _omit_ option can be specified as many times as required so that
	    the list of patterns doesn't all have to fit on one line.

	    As an example,

		 mbox=bulk...
		 omit=bulk/spam*

	    will index all mbox folders at any level under the 'bulk'  subdirec-
	    tory  of the base folder, except for those folders whose names start
	    'bulk/spam', e.g. 'bulk/spam', 'bulk/spam2005' etc.

	    In constrast,

		 mbox=bulk...
		 omit=bulk/spam**

	    will index all mbox folders at any level under the 'bulk'  subdirec-
	    tory  of the base folder, except for those folders whose names start
	    'bulk/spam', e.g.  'bulk/spam',  'bulk/spam2005',  'bulk/spam/2005',
	    'bulk/spam/2005/jan' etc.

     nochecks
	    This  takes  no  arguments.   If  a  line  starting with nochecks is
	    present, it is the equivalent of specifying the -Q flag to every in-
	    dexing run.

     mfolder=match-folder-name
	    This defines the name of the folder (within the directory  specified
	    by	base)  into  which  the  search mode writes its output.  (If the
	    mformat used is 'raw' or 'excerpt', then this setting  is  not  used
	    and may be omitted.)

	    The  mfolder  setting  may be over-ridden for a particular search by
	    using the -o option to mairix.

	    mairix will refuse to output search results to a folder that appears
	    to be amongst those that are indexed.  This is to prevent accidental
	    deletion of emails.

	    If the first character of the mfolder value is '/'	or  '.',  it  is
	    taken  as  a  pathname in its own right.  This allows you to specify
	    absolute paths and paths relative to the current directory where the
	    mfolder should be written.	Otherwise, the value of mfolder  is  ap-
	    pended to the value of base, in the same way as for the source fold-
	    ers.

     mformat=format
	    This  defines the type of folder used for the match folder where the
	    search results go.	There are six valid settings for format,  namely
	    'maildir',	'mh', 'mbox', 'imap', 'raw', or 'excerpt'.  If the 'raw'
	    setting is used then mairix will just print out the  path  names  of
	    the  files	that  match and no match folder will be created.  If the
	    'excerpt' setting is used, mairix will also print out the To:,  Cc:,
	    From:,   Subject:  and  Date:  headers  of	the  matching  messages.
	    'maildir' is the default if this option is not defined.  The setting
	    is case-insensitive.

     database=path-to-database
	    This defines the path where mairix's index database  is  kept.   You
	    can keep this file anywhere you like.

	    Currently,	mairix will place a single database file at the location
	    indicated by path-to-database.  However, a future version of  mairix
	    may instead place a directory containing several files at this loca-
	    tion.

	    path-to-database should be an absolute pathname (starting with '/').
	    If	a  relative pathname is used, it will be interpreted relative to
	    the current directory at the time mairix is run,  (not  relative  to
	    the location of the mairixrc file or anything like that.)

     follow_mbox_symlinks
	    This  takes  no arguments.	By default, mairix will skip symlinks to
	    mboxes when indexing.  If a line starting with  follow_mbox_symlinks
	    is present, mairix will follow them instead of skipping them.

   Expansions
     The  part of each line in '.mairixrc' following the equals sign can contain
     the following types of expansion:

     Home directory expansion
	    If the sequence '~/' appears at the start  of  the	text  after  the
	    equals sign, it is expanded to the user's home directory.  Example:

		 database=~/Mail/mairix_database

     Environment expansion
	    If	a  '$' is followed by a sequence of alpha-numeric characters (or
	    '_'), the whole string is replaced by looking up  the  corresponding
	    environment  variable.   Similarly,  if  '$'  is followed by an open
	    brace ('{'), everything up to the next close brace is looked  up  as
	    an environment variable and the result replaces the entire sequence.

	    Suppose in the shell we do

		 export FOO=bar

	    and the '.mairixrc' file contains

		 maildir=xxx/$FOO
		 mbox=yyy/a${FOO}b

	    this is equivalent to

		 maildir=xxx/bar
		 mbox=yyy/abarb

	    If the specified environment variable is not set, the replacement is
	    the empty string.

NOTES
     An  alternative path to the configuration file may be given with the -f op-
     tion to mairix(1).

				  January 2006			     MAIRIXRC(5)

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