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1 .H0 "Work Report
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2 .P
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3 foo
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4 .P
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5 bar
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6
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7 .H1 "Removal of Code Relicts
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8 .P
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9 The code base of mmh originates from the late 70s, had been extensively
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10 worked on in the mid 80s, and had been partly reorganized and extended
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11 in the 90s. Relicts of all those times had gathered in the code base.
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12 My goal was to remove any ancient code parts. One part of the task was
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13 converting obsolete code constructs to standard constructs, the other part
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14 was dropping obsolete functions.
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15 .P
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16 As I'm not even thirty years old and have no more than seven years of
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17 Unix experience, I needed to learn about the history in retroperspective.
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18 Older people likely have used those ancient constructs themself
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19 and have suffered from their incompatiblities and have longed for
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20 standardization. Unfortunately, I have only read that others had done so.
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21 This put me in a much more difficult positions when working on the old
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22 code. I needed to recherche what other would have known by heart from
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23 experience. All my programming experience comes from a time past ANSI C
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24 and past POSIX. Although I knew about the times before, I took the
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25 current state implicitely for granted most of the time.
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26 .P
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27 Being aware of
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28 these facts, I rather let people with more historic experience solve the
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29 task of converting the ancient code constructs to standardized ones.
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30 Luckily, Lyndon Nerenberg focused on this task at the nmh project.
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31 He converted large parts of the code to POSIX constructs, removing
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32 the conditionals compilation for now standardized features.
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33 I'm thankful for this task being solved. I only pulled the changes into
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34 mmh.
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35 .P
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36 The other task \(en dropping ancient functionality to remove old code \(en
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37 I did myself, though. My position to strip mmh to the bare minimum of
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38 frequently used features is much more revolutional than the nmh community
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39 likes it. Without the need to justify my decisions, I was able to quickly
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40 remove functionality I considered ancient.
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41 The need to discuss my decisions with
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42 peers likely would have slowed this process down. Of course, I researched
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43 if a particular feature really should be dropped. Having not had any
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44 contact to this feature within my computer life was a first indicator to
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45 drop it, but I also asked others and searched the literature for modern
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46 usage of the feature. If it appeared to be truly ancient, I dropped it.
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47 The reason for dropping is always part of the commit message in the
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48 version control system. Thus, it is easy for others to check their
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49 view on the topic with mine and possibly to argue for reinclusion.
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50
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51 .U2 "MMDF maildrop support
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52 .P
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53 I did drop any support for the MMDF maildrop format. This type of format
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54 is conceptionally similar to the mbox format, but uses four bytes with
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55 value 1 (\fL^A^A^A^A\fP) as message delimiter,
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56 instead of the string ``\fLFrom\ \fP''.
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57 Due to the similarity and mbox being the de-facto standard maildrop
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58 format on Unix, but also due to the larger influence of Sendmail than MMDF,
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59 the MMDF maildrop format had vanished.
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60 .P
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61 The simplifications within the code were only moderate. Switches could
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62 be removed from tools like
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63 .L packf ,
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64 which generate packed mailboxes. Only one packed mailbox format remained:
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65 mbox.
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66 The most important changes affect the equally named mail parsing routine in
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67 .L sbr/m_getfld.c .
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68 The direct MMDF code had been removed, but as now only one packed mailbox
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69 format is left, code structure simplifications are likely possible.
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70 The reason why they are still outstanding is the heavily optimized code
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71 of
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72 .Fu m_getfld() .
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73 Changes beyond a small local scope \(en
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74 which restructuring in its core is \(en cause a high risk of damaging
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75 the intricate workings of the optimized code. This problem is know
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76 to the developers of nmh, too. They also avoid touching this minefield
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77 if possible.
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78
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79 .U2 "UUCP Bang Paths
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80 .P
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81 More questionably than the former topic is the removal of support for the
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82 UUCP bang path address style. However, the user may translate the bang
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83 paths on retrieval to Internet addresses and the other way on posting
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84 messages. The former can be done my an MDA like procmail; the latter
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85 by a sendmail wrapper. This would ensure that any address handling would
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86 work as expected. However, it might just work well without any
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87 such modifications, as mmh does not touch addresses much, in general.
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88 But I can't ensure as I have never used an environment with bang paths.
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89 Also, the behavior might break at any point in further development.
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90
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91 .U2 "Hardcopy terminal support
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92 .P
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93 More of a funny anecdote is the remaining of a check for printing to a
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94 hardcopy terminal until Spring 2012, when I finally removed it.
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95 I surely would be very happy to see such a terminal in action, maybe
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96 actually being able to work on it, but I fear my chances are null.
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97 .P
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98 The check only prevented a pager to be placed between the outputting
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99 program (\c
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100 .Pn mhl )
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101 and the terminal. This could have been ensured with
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102 the
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103 .Sw \-nomoreproc
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104 at the command line statically, too.
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105
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106 .U2 "Removed support for header fields
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107 .P
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108 The `Encrypted' header had been introduced by RFC\^822, but already
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109 marked legacy in RFC 2822. It was superseded by FIXME.
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110 Mmh does no more support this header.
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111 .P
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112 Native support for `Face' headers
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113 had been removed, as well.
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114 The feature is similar to the `X-Face' header in its intent,
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115 but takes a different approach to store the image.
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116 Instead of encoding the image data directly into the header,
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117 the the header contains the hostname and UDP port where the image
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118 date could be retrieved.
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119 Neither `X-Face' nor the here described `Face' system
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120 \**
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121 .FS
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122 There is also a newer but different system, invented 2005,
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123 using `Face' headers.
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124 It is the successor of `X-Face' providing colored PNG images.
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125 .FE
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126 became well used in the large scale.
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127 It's still possible to use a Face systems,
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128 although mmh does not provide support for any of the different systems
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129 anymore. It's fairly easy to write a small shell script to
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130 extract the embedded or fetch the external Face data and display the image.
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131 Own Face headers can be added into the draft template files.
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132 .P
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133 `Content-MD5' headers were introduced by RFC\^1864. They provide only
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134 a verification of data corruption during the transfer. By no means can
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135 they ensure verbatim end-to-end delivery of the contents. This is clearly
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136 stated in the RFC. The proper approach to provide verificationability
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137 of content in an end-to-end relationship is the use of digital cryptography
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138 (RFCs FIXME). On the other hand, transfer protocols should ensure the
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139 integrity of the transmission. In combinations these two approaches
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140 make the `Content-MD5' header field useless. In consequence, I removed
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141 the support for it. By this removal, MD5 computation is not needed
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142 anywhere in mmh. Hence, over 500 lines of code were removed by this one
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143 change. Even if the `Content-MD5' header field is useful sometimes,
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144 I value its usefulnes less than the improvement in maintainability, caused
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145 by the removal.
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146
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147 .U2 "Prompter's Control Keys
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148 .P
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149 The program
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150 .Pn prompter
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151 queries the user to fill in a message form. When used by
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152 .Pn comp
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153 as:
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154 .DS
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155 comp \-editor prompter
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156 .DE
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157 the resulting behavior is similar to
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158 .Pn mailx .
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159 Appearently,
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160 .Pn prompter
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161 hadn't been touched lately. Otherwise it's hardly explainable why it
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162 still offered the switches
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163 .Sn \-erase \fUchr\fP
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164 and
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165 .Sn \-kill \fUchr\fP
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166 to name the characters for command line editing.
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167 The times when this had been necessary are long time gone.
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168 Today these things work out-of-the-box, and if not, are configured
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169 with the standard tool
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170 .Pn stty .
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171
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172 .U2 "Vfork and Retry Loops
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173 .P
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174 MH creates many processes, which is a concequence of the toolchest approach.
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175 In earlier times
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176 .Fu fork()
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177 had been an expensive system call, as the process's whole image needed
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178 to be duplicated. One common case is replacing the image with
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179 .Fu exec()
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180 right after having forked the child process.
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181 To speed up this case, the
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182 .Fu vfork()
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183 system call was invented at Berkeley. It completely omits copying the
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184 image. If the image gets replaced right afterwards then unnecessary
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185 work is omited. On old systems this results in large speed ups.
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186 MH uses
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187 .Fu vfork()
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188 whenever possible.
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189 .P
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190 Memory management units that support copy-on-write semantics make
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191 .Fu fork()
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192 almost as fast as
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193 .Fu vfork()
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194 in the cases when they can be exchanged.
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195 With
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196 .Fu vfork()
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197 being more errorprone and hardly faster, it's preferable to simply
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198 use
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199 .Fu fork()
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200 instead.
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201 .P
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202 Related to the costs of
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203 .Fu fork()
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204 is the probability of its success.
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205 Today on modern systems, the system call will succeed almost always.
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206 In the 80s on heavy loaded systems, as they were common at
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207 universities, this had been different. Thus, many of the
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208 .Fu fork()
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209 calls were wrapped into loops to retry to fork several times in
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210 short intervals, in case of previous failure.
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211 In mmh, the program aborts at once if the fork failed.
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212 The user can reexecute the command then. This is expected to be a
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213 very rare case on modern systems, especially personal ones, which are
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214 common today.
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215
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216
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217 .H1 "Draft and Trash Folders
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218 .U2 "Draft Folder
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219 .P
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220 Historically, MH provided exactly one draft message, named
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221 .Fn draft
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222 and
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223 being located in the MH directory. When starting to compose another message
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224 before the former one was sent, the user had been questioned wether to use,
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225 refile or replace the old draft. Working on multiple drafts at the same time
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226 was impossible. One could only work on them in alteration by refiling the
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227 previous one to some directory and fetching some other one for reediting.
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228 This manual draft management needed to be done each time the user wanted
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229 to switch between editing one draft to editing another.
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230 .P
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231 To allow true parallel editing of drafts, in a straight forward way, the
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232 draft folder facility exists. It had been introduced already in July 1984
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233 by Marshall T. Rose. The facility was deactivated by default.
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234 Even in nmh, the draft folder facility remained deactivated by default.
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235 At least, Richard Coleman added the man page
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236 .Mp mh-draft(5)
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237 to document
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238 the feature well.
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239 .P
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240 The only advantage of not using the draft folder facility is the static
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241 name of the draft file. This could be an issue for MH frontends like mh-e.
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242 But as they likely want to provide working on multiple drafts in parallel,
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243 the issue is only concerning compatibility. The aim of nmh to stay compatible
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244 prevented the default activation of the draft folder facility.
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245 .P
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246 On the other hand, a draft folder is the much more natural concept than
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247 a draft message. MH's mail storage consists of folders and messages,
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248 the messages named with ascending numbers. A draft message breaks with this
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249 concept by introducing a message in a file named
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250 .Fn draft .
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251 This draft
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252 message is special. It can not be simply listed with the available tools,
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253 but instead requires special switches. I.e. corner-cases were
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254 introduced. A draft folder, in contrast, does not introduce such
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255 corner-cases. The available tools can operate on the messages within that
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256 folder like on any messages within any mail folders. The only difference
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257 is the fact that the default folder for
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258 .Pn send
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259 is the draft folder,
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260 instead of the current folder, like for all other tools.
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261 .P
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262 The trivial part of the change was activating the draft folder facility
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263 by default and setting a default name for this folder. Obviously, I chose
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264 the name
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265 .Fn +drafts .
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266 This made the
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267 .Sw \-draftfolder
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268 and
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269 .Sw \-draftmessage
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270 switches useless, and I could remove them.
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271 The more difficult but also the part that showed the real improvement,
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272 was updating the tools to the new concept.
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273 .Sw \-draft
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274 switches could
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275 be dropped, as operating on a draft message became indistinguishable to
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276 operating on any other message for the tools.
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277 .Pn comp
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278 still has its
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279 .Sw \-use
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280 switch for switching between its two modes: (1) Compose a new
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281 draft, possibly by taking some existing message as a form. (2) Modify
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282 an existing draft. In either case, the behavior of
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283 .Pn comp is
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284 deterministic. There is no more need to query the user. I consider this
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285 a major improvement. By making
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286 .Pn send
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287 simply operate on the current
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288 message in the draft folder by default, with message and folder both
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289 overridable by specifying them on the command line, it is now possible
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290 to send a draft anywhere within the storage by simply specifying its folder
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291 and name.
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292 .P
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293 All theses changes converted special cases to regular cases, thus
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294 simplifying the tools and increasing the flexibility.
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295
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296 .U2 "Trash Folder
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297 .P
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298 Similar to the situation for drafts is the situation for removed messages.
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299 Historically, a message was deleted by renaming. A specific
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300 \fIbackup prefix\fP, often comma (\c
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301 .Fn , )
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302 or hash (\c
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303 .Fn # ),
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304 being prepended to the file name. Thus, MH wouldn't recognize the file
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305 as a message anymore, as only files whose name consists of digits only
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306 are treated as messages. The removed messages remained as files in the
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307 same directory and needed some maintenance job to truly delete them after
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308 some grace time. Usually, by running a command similar to
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309 .DS
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310 find /home/user/Mail \-ctime +7 \-name ',*' | xargs rm
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311 .DE
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312 in a cron job. Within the grace time interval
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313 the original message could be restored by stripping the
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314 the backup prefix from the file name. If however, the last message of
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315 a folder is been removed \(en say message
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316 .Fn 6
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317 becomes file
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318 .Fn ,6
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319 \(en and a new message enters the same folder, thus the same
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320 numbered being given again \(en in our case
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321 .Fn 6
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322 \(en, if that one
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323 is removed too, then the backup of the former message gets overwritten.
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324 Thus, the ability to restore removed messages does not only depend on
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325 the ``sweeping cron job'' but also on the removing of further messages.
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326 This is undesireable, because the real mechanism is hidden from the user
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327 and the concequences of further removals are not always obvious.
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328 Further more, the backup files are scattered within the whole mail
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329 storage, instead of being collected at one place.
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330 .P
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331 To improve the situation, the profile entry
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332 .Pe rmmproc
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333 (previously named
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334 .Pe Delete-Prog )
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335 was introduced, very early.
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336 It could be set to any command, which would care for the mail removal
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337 instead of taking the default action, described above.
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338 Refiling the to-be-removed files to some wastebin folder was a common
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339 example. Nmh's man page
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340 .Mp rmm(1)
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341 proposes
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342 .Cl "refile +d
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meillo@18
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343 to move messages to the wastebin and
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344 .Cl "rm `mhpath +d all`
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meillo@16
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345 the empty the wastebin.
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meillo@16
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346 Managing the message removal this way is a sane approach. It keeps
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meillo@16
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347 the removed messages in one place, makes it easy to remove the backup
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meillo@16
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348 files, and, most important, enables the user to use the tools of MH
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349 itself to operate on the removed messages. One can
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meillo@18
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350 .Pn scan
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meillo@18
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351 them,
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meillo@18
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352 .Pn show
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353 them, and restore them with
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meillo@18
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354 .Pn refile .
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meillo@18
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355 There's no more
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356 need to use
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357 .Pn mhpath
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meillo@18
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358 to switch over from MH tools to Unix tools \(en MH can do it all itself.
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meillo@16
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359 .P
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360 This apporach matches perfect with the concepts of MH, thus making
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361 it powerful. Hence, I made it the default. And even more, I also
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meillo@16
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362 removed the old backup prefix approach, as it is clearly less powerful.
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meillo@16
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363 Keeping unused alternative in the code is a bad choice as they likely
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meillo@16
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364 gather bugs, by not being constantly tested. Also, the increased code
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meillo@16
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365 size and more conditions crease the maintenance costs. By strictly
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meillo@16
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366 converting to the trash folder approach, I simplified the code base.
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meillo@18
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367 .Pn rmm
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meillo@18
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368 calls
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meillo@18
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369 .Pn refile
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meillo@18
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370 internally to move the to-be-removed
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meillo@18
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371 message to the trash folder (\c
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meillo@18
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372 .Fn +trash
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meillo@18
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373 by default). Messages
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meillo@16
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374 there can be operated on like on any other message in the storage.
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meillo@18
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375 The sweep clean, one can use
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meillo@18
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376 .Cl "rmm \-unlink +trash a" ,
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meillo@18
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377 where the
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meillo@18
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378 .Sw \-unlink
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meillo@18
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379 switch causes the files to be truly unliked instead
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meillo@16
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380 of moved to the trash folder.
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meillo@16
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381
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meillo@0
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382
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meillo@17
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383 .H1 "MH Directory Split
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meillo@0
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384 .P
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meillo@19
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385 In MH and nmh, a personal setup had consisted of two parts:
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meillo@19
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386 The MH profile, named
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meillo@19
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387 .Fn \&.mh_profile
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meillo@19
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388 and being located directly in the user's home directory.
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meillo@19
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389 And the MH directory, where all his mail messages and also his personal
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meillo@19
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390 forms, scan formats, other configuration files are stored. The location
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meillo@19
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391 of this directory could be user-chosen. The default was to name it
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meillo@19
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392 .Fn Mail
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meillo@19
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393 and have it directly in the home directory.
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meillo@19
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394 .P
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meillo@19
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395 I've never liked the data storage and the configuration to be intermixed.
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meillo@19
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396 They are different kinds of data. One part, are the messages,
|
meillo@19
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397 which are the data to operate on. The other part, are the personal
|
meillo@19
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398 configuration files, which are able to change the behavior of the operations.
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meillo@19
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399 The actual operations are defined in the profile, however.
|
meillo@19
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400 .P
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meillo@19
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401 When storing data, one should try to group data by its type.
|
meillo@19
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402 There's sense in the Unix file system hierarchy, where configuration
|
meillo@19
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403 file are stored separate (\c
|
meillo@19
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404 .Fn /etc )
|
meillo@19
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405 to the programs (\c
|
meillo@19
|
406 .Fn /bin
|
meillo@19
|
407 and
|
meillo@19
|
408 .Fn /usr/bin )
|
meillo@19
|
409 to their sources (\c
|
meillo@19
|
410 .Fn /usr/src ).
|
meillo@19
|
411 Such separation eases the backup management, for instance.
|
meillo@19
|
412 .P
|
meillo@19
|
413 In mmh, I've reorganized the file locations.
|
meillo@19
|
414 Still there are two places:
|
meillo@19
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415 There's the mail storage directory, which, like in MH, contains all the
|
meillo@19
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416 messages, but, unlike in MH, nothing else.
|
meillo@19
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417 Its location still is user-chosen, with the default name
|
meillo@19
|
418 .Fn Mail ,
|
meillo@19
|
419 in the user's home directory. This is much similar to the case in nmh.
|
meillo@19
|
420 The configuration files, however, are grouped together in the new directory
|
meillo@19
|
421 .Fn \&.mmh
|
meillo@19
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422 in the user's home directory.
|
meillo@19
|
423 The user's profile now is a file, named
|
meillo@19
|
424 .Fn profile ,
|
meillo@19
|
425 in this mmh directory.
|
meillo@19
|
426 Consistently, the context file and all the personal forms, scan formats,
|
meillo@19
|
427 and the like, are also there.
|
meillo@19
|
428 .P
|
meillo@19
|
429 The naming changed with the relocation.
|
meillo@19
|
430 The directory where everything, except the profile, had been stored (\c
|
meillo@19
|
431 .Fn $HOME/Mail ),
|
meillo@19
|
432 used to be called \fIMH directory\fP. Now, this directory is called the
|
meillo@19
|
433 user's \fImail storage\fP. The name \fImmh directory\fP is now given to
|
meillo@19
|
434 the new directory
|
meillo@19
|
435 (\c
|
meillo@19
|
436 .Fn $HOME/.mmh ),
|
meillo@19
|
437 containing all the personal configuration files.
|
meillo@19
|
438 .P
|
meillo@19
|
439 The separation of the files by type of content is logical and convenient.
|
meillo@19
|
440 There are no functional differences as any possible setup known to me
|
meillo@19
|
441 can be implemented with both approaches, although likely a bit easier
|
meillo@19
|
442 with the new approach. The main goal of the change had been to provide
|
meillo@19
|
443 sensible storage locations for any type of personal mmh file.
|
meillo@19
|
444 .P
|
meillo@19
|
445 In order for one user to have multiple MH setups, he can use the
|
meillo@19
|
446 environment variable
|
meillo@19
|
447 .Ev MH
|
meillo@19
|
448 the point to a different profile file.
|
meillo@19
|
449 The MH directory (mail storage plus personal configuration files) is
|
meillo@19
|
450 defined by the
|
meillo@19
|
451 .Pe Path
|
meillo@19
|
452 profile entry.
|
meillo@19
|
453 The context file could be defined by the
|
meillo@19
|
454 .Pe context
|
meillo@19
|
455 profile entry or by the
|
meillo@19
|
456 .Ev MHCONTEXT
|
meillo@19
|
457 environment variable.
|
meillo@19
|
458 The latter is useful to have a distinct context (e.g. current folders)
|
meillo@19
|
459 in each terminal window, for instance.
|
meillo@19
|
460 In mmh, there are three environment variables now.
|
meillo@19
|
461 .Ev MMH
|
meillo@19
|
462 may be used to change the location of the mmh directory.
|
meillo@19
|
463 .Ev MMHP
|
meillo@19
|
464 and
|
meillo@19
|
465 .Ev MMHC
|
meillo@19
|
466 change the profile and context files, respectively.
|
meillo@19
|
467 Besides providing a more consistent feel (which simply is the result
|
meillo@19
|
468 of being designed anew), the set of personal configuration files can
|
meillo@19
|
469 be chosen independently from the profile (including mail storage location)
|
meillo@19
|
470 and context, now. Being it relevant for practical use or not, it
|
meillo@19
|
471 de-facto is an improvement. However, the main achievement is the
|
meillo@19
|
472 split between mail storage and personal configuration files.
|
meillo@17
|
473
|
meillo@0
|
474
|
meillo@0
|
475 .H1 "Path Notations
|
meillo@0
|
476 .P
|
meillo@0
|
477 foo
|
meillo@0
|
478
|
meillo@0
|
479 .H1 "Attachments
|
meillo@0
|
480 .P
|
meillo@0
|
481 foo
|
meillo@0
|
482
|
meillo@20
|
483 .H1 "mhshow to show Transition
|
meillo@20
|
484 .P
|
meillo@20
|
485 Since the very beginning, already in the first concept paper,
|
meillo@20
|
486 .Pn show
|
meillo@20
|
487 had been MH's mail display program.
|
meillo@20
|
488 .Pn show
|
meillo@20
|
489 found out which pathnames the relevant messages had and invoked
|
meillo@20
|
490 .Pn mhl
|
meillo@20
|
491 then to let it render the content.
|
meillo@20
|
492 With the advent of MIME, this approach wasn't sufficient anymore.
|
meillo@20
|
493 MIME messages can consist of multiple parts, some of which aren't
|
meillo@20
|
494 directly displayable, and text content can be encoded in
|
meillo@20
|
495 foreign charsets.
|
meillo@20
|
496 .Pn show 's
|
meillo@20
|
497 simple approach and
|
meillo@20
|
498 .Pn mhl 's
|
meillo@20
|
499 limited display facilities couldn't cope with the task any longer.
|
meillo@20
|
500 Instead of extending these tools, new ones were written from scratch
|
meillo@20
|
501 and then added to the MH toolchest. Doing so is encouraged by the
|
meillo@20
|
502 toolchest approach. The new tools could be added without interfearing
|
meillo@20
|
503 with the existing ones. This is great. It allowed MH to be the
|
meillo@20
|
504 first MUA to implement MIME.
|
meillo@20
|
505 .P
|
meillo@20
|
506 The new MIME features were added in form of the single program
|
meillo@20
|
507 .Pn mhn .
|
meillo@20
|
508 The command
|
meillo@20
|
509 .DS
|
meillo@20
|
510 mhn \-show 42
|
meillo@20
|
511 .DE
|
meillo@20
|
512 would show the MIME message numbered 42.
|
meillo@20
|
513 With the 1.0 release of nmh in February 1999, Richard Coleman finished
|
meillo@20
|
514 the split of
|
meillo@20
|
515 .Pn mhn
|
meillo@20
|
516 into a set of specialized programs, which together covered the
|
meillo@20
|
517 aspects of MIME. One of these resulting tools was
|
meillo@20
|
518 .Pn mhshow .
|
meillo@20
|
519
|
meillo@20
|
520
|
meillo@0
|
521 .H1 "Blind Carbon Copies
|
meillo@0
|
522 .P
|
meillo@0
|
523 foo
|
meillo@0
|
524
|
meillo@0
|
525 .H1 "Good Defaults
|
meillo@0
|
526 .P
|
meillo@0
|
527 foo
|
meillo@0
|
528
|
meillo@0
|
529 .H1 "Modularization
|
meillo@0
|
530 .P
|
meillo@0
|
531 foo
|
meillo@0
|
532
|
meillo@0
|
533 .H1 "Code style
|
meillo@0
|
534 .P
|
meillo@0
|
535 foo
|