docs/master: discussion.roff annotate

docs/master

annotate discussion.roff @ 166:f102dcc06bb9

s/digital cryptography/signing and encryption/

author	markus schnalke <meillo@marmaro.de>
date	Tue, 10 Jul 2012 09:58:30 +0200
parents	ea6eec1722d1
children	277eeb5ba223

rev	line source
meillo@58	1 .H0 "Discussion
meillo@0	2 .P
meillo@58	3 This main chapter discusses the practical work done in the mmh project.
meillo@104	4 It is structured along the goals to achieve.
meillo@104	5 The concrete work done
meillo@58	6 is described in the examples of how the general goals were achieved.
meillo@87	7 The discussion compares the current version of mmh with the state of
meillo@87	8 nmh just before the mmh project started, i.e. Fall 2011.
meillo@87	9 Current changes of nmh will be mentioned only as side notes.
meillo@87	10 .\" XXX where do I discuss the parallel development of nmh?
meillo@58	11
meillo@58	12
meillo@58	13
meillo@133	14 .\" --------------------------------------------------------------
meillo@125	15 .H1 "Streamlining
meillo@58	16
meillo@0	17 .P
meillo@58	18 MH had been considered an all-in-one system for mail handling.
meillo@58	19 The community around nmh has a similar understanding.
meillo@87	20 In fundamental difference, mmh shall be a MUA only.
meillo@87	21 I believe that the development of all-in-one mail systems is obsolete.
meillo@87	22 Today, email is too complex to be fully covered by single projects.
meillo@87	23 Such a project won't be able to excel in all aspects.
meillo@159	24 Instead, the aspects of email should be covered by multiple projects,
meillo@87	25 which then can be combined to form a complete system.
meillo@87	26 Excellent implementations for the various aspects of email exist already.
meillo@87	27 Just to name three examples: Postfix is a specialized MTA,
meillo@159	28 .\" XXX homepages verlinken
meillo@87	29 Procmail is a specialized MDA, and Fetchmail is a specialized MRA.
meillo@89	30 I believe that it is best to use such specialized tools instead of
meillo@87	31 providing the same function again as a side-component in the project.
meillo@164	32 .\" XXX mail agent picture here
meillo@58	33 .P
meillo@87	34 Doing something well, requires to focus on a small set of specific aspects.
meillo@87	35 Under the assumption that focused development produces better results
meillo@100	36 in the particular area, specialized projects will be superior
meillo@87	37 in their field of focus.
meillo@87	38 Hence, all-in-one mail system projects \(en no matter if monolithic
meillo@87	39 or modular \(en will never be the best choice in any of the fields.
meillo@87	40 Even in providing the best consistent all-in-one system they are likely
meillo@87	41 to be beaten by projects that focus only on integrating existing mail
meillo@89	42 components to a homogeneous system.
meillo@87	43 .P
meillo@87	44 The limiting resource in Free Software community development
meillo@87	45 is usually man power.
meillo@87	46 If the development power is spread over a large development area,
meillo@87	47 it becomes even more difficult to compete with the specialists in the
meillo@87	48 various fields.
meillo@87	49 The concrete situation for MH-based mail systems is even tougher,
meillo@87	50 given the small and aged community, including both developers and users,
meillo@87	51 it has.
meillo@87	52 .P
meillo@87	53 In consequence, I believe that the available development resources
meillo@100	54 should focus on the point where MH is most unique.
meillo@87	55 This is clearly the user interface \(en the MUA.
meillo@125	56 Peripheral parts should be removed to streamline mmh for the MUA task.
meillo@60	57
meillo@60	58
meillo@100	59 .H2 "Mail Transfer Facilities
meillo@154	60 .Id mail-transfer-facilities
meillo@60	61 .P
meillo@60	62 In contrast to nmh, which also provides mail submission and mail retrieval
meillo@87	63 agents, mmh is a MUA only.
meillo@100	64 This general difference initiated the development of mmh.
meillo@66	65 Removing the mail transfer facilities had been the first work task
meillo@76	66 in the mmh project.
meillo@60	67 .P
meillo@105	68 Focusing on one mail agent role only is motivated by Eric Allman's
meillo@105	69 experience with Sendmail.
meillo@159	70 He identified the limitation of Sendmail to the MTA task as one reason for
meillo@105	71 its success:
meillo@105	72 .[ [
meillo@105	73 costales sendmail
meillo@105	74 .], p. xviii]
meillo@105	75 .QS
meillo@105	76 Second, I limited myself to the routing function \(en
meillo@110	77 I wouldn't write user agents or delivery back-ends.
meillo@105	78 This was a departure of the dominant through of the time,
meillo@105	79 in which routing logic, local delivery, and often the network code
meillo@105	80 were incorporated directly into the user agents.
meillo@105	81 .QE
meillo@105	82 .P
meillo@159	83 In nmh, the Mail Submission Agent (MSA) is called
meillo@105	84 \fIMessage Transfer Service\fP (MTS).
meillo@105	85 This facility, implemented by the
meillo@105	86 .Pn post
meillo@105	87 command, established network connections and spoke SMTP to submit
meillo@159	88 messages to be relayed to the outside world.
meillo@105	89 The changes in email demanded changes in this part of nmh too.
meillo@89	90 Encryption and authentication for network connections
meillo@87	91 needed to be supported, hence TLS and SASL were introduced into nmh.
meillo@87	92 This added complexity to nmh without improving it in its core functions.
meillo@87	93 Also, keeping up with recent developments in the field of
meillo@87	94 mail transfer requires development power and specialists.
meillo@87	95 In mmh this whole facility was simply cut off.
meillo@76	96 .Ci f6aa95b724fd8c791164abe7ee5468bf5c34f226
meillo@76	97 .Ci fecd5d34f65597a4dfa16aeabea7d74b191532c3
meillo@76	98 .Ci 156d35f6425bea4c1ed3c4c79783dc613379c65b
meillo@87	99 Instead, mmh depends on an external MSA.
meillo@60	100 The only outgoing interface available to mmh is the
meillo@60	101 .Pn sendmail
meillo@87	102 command, which almost any MSA provides.
meillo@87	103 If not, a wrapper program can be written.
meillo@87	104 It must read the message from the standard input, extract the
meillo@87	105 recipient addresses from the message header, and hand the message
meillo@87	106 over to the MSA.
meillo@87	107 For example, a wrapper script for qmail would be:
meillo@87	108 .VS
meillo@87	109 #!/bin/sh
meillo@138	110 exec qmail-inject # ignore command line arguments
meillo@87	111 VE
meillo@87	112 The requirement to parse the recipient addresses out of the message header
meillo@87	113 is likely to be removed in the future.
meillo@87	114 Then mmh would give the recipient addresses as command line arguments.
meillo@100	115 This appears to be the better interface.
meillo@87	116 .\" XXX implement it
meillo@60	117 .P
meillo@60	118 To retrieve mail, the
meillo@60	119 .Pn inc
meillo@100	120 command acted as Mail Retrieval Agent (MRA).
meillo@100	121 It established network connections
meillo@76	122 and spoke POP3 to retrieve mail from remote servers.
meillo@76	123 As with mail submission, the network connections required encryption and
meillo@87	124 authentication, thus TLS and SASL were added.
meillo@87	125 Support for message retrieval through IMAP will become necessary
meillo@100	126 to be added soon, too, and likewise for any other changes in mail transfer.
meillo@100	127 Not so for mmh because it has dropped the support for retrieving mail
meillo@100	128 from remote locations.
meillo@76	129 .Ci ab7b48411962d26439f92f35ed084d3d6275459c
meillo@76	130 Instead, it depends on an external tool to cover this task.
meillo@159	131 In mmh, two paths exist for messages to enter mmh's mail storage:
meillo@100	132 (1) Mail can be incorporated with
meillo@60	133 .Pn inc
meillo@87	134 from the system maildrop, or (2) with
meillo@60	135 .Pn rcvstore
meillo@87	136 by reading them, one at a time, from the standard input.
meillo@60	137 .P
meillo@60	138 With the removal of the MSA and MRA, mmh converted from an all-in-one
meillo@87	139 mail system to being a MUA only.
meillo@60	140 Now, of course, mmh depends on third-party software.
meillo@87	141 An external MSA is required to transfer mail to the outside world;
meillo@60	142 an external MRA is required to retrieve mail from remote machines.
meillo@60	143 There exist excellent implementations of such software,
meillo@159	144 which likely are superior than the internal version.
meillo@159	145 Additionally, the best suiting programs can be freely chosen.
meillo@60	146 .P
meillo@60	147 As it had already been possible to use an external MSA or MRA,
meillo@60	148 why not keep the internal version for convenience?
meillo@159	149 .\" XXX ueberleitung
meillo@76	150 The question whether there is sense in having a fall-back pager in all
meillo@76	151 the command line tools, for the cases when
meillo@60	152 .Pn more
meillo@60	153 or
meillo@60	154 .Pn less
meillo@76	155 aren't available, appears to be ridiculous.
meillo@100	156 Of course, MSAs and MRAs are more complex than text pagers
meillo@87	157 and not necessarily available but still the concept of orthogonal
meillo@87	158 design holds: ``Write programs that do one thing and do it well.''
meillo@87	159 .[
meillo@87	160 mcilroy unix phil
meillo@87	161 p. 53
meillo@87	162 .]
meillo@87	163 .[
meillo@87	164 mcilroy bstj foreword
meillo@87	165 .]
meillo@87	166 Here, this part of the Unix philosophy was applied not only
meillo@87	167 to the programs but to the project itself.
meillo@87	168 In other words:
meillo@164	169 Develop projects that focus on one thing and do it well.
meillo@164	170 Projects grown complex should be split for the same reasons programs
meillo@164	171 grown complex should be split.
meillo@100	172 If it is conceptionally more elegant to have the MSA and MRA as
meillo@87	173 separate projects then they should be separated.
meillo@87	174 This is the case here, in my opinion.
meillo@87	175 The RFCs propose this separation by clearly distinguishing the different
meillo@87	176 mail handling tasks.
meillo@87	177 .[
meillo@87	178 rfc 821
meillo@87	179 .]
meillo@87	180 The small interfaces between the mail agents support the separation.
meillo@76	181 .P
meillo@87	182 In the beginning, email had been small and simple.
meillo@100	183 At that time,
meillo@60	184 .Pn /bin/mail
meillo@100	185 had covered anything there was to email and still had been small
meillo@100	186 and simple.
meillo@100	187 Later, the essential complexity of email increased.
meillo@87	188 (Essential complexity is the complexity defined by the problem itself.\0
meillo@87	189 .[[
meillo@87	190 brooks no silver bullet
meillo@87	191 .]])
meillo@87	192 Email systems reacted to this change: They grew.
meillo@100	193 RFCs started to introduce the concept of mail agents to separate the
meillo@100	194 various tasks because they became more extensive and new tasks appeared.
meillo@100	195 As the mail systems grew even more, parts were split off.
meillo@100	196 In nmh, for instance, the POP server, which was included in the original
meillo@100	197 MH, was removed.
meillo@164	198 Now is the time to go one step further and split off the MSA and MRA, too.
meillo@87	199 Not only does this decrease the code size of the project,
meillo@87	200 but, more important, it unburdens mmh of the whole field of
meillo@87	201 message transfer with all its implications for the project.
meillo@100	202 There is no more need to concern with changes in network transfer.
meillo@76	203 This independence is received by depending on an external program
meillo@76	204 that covers the field.
meillo@76	205 Today, this is a reasonable exchange.
meillo@60	206 .P
meillo@159	207 .\" XXX ueberleitung ???
meillo@100	208 Functionality can be added in three different ways:
meillo@87	209 .BU
meillo@87	210 Implementing the function originally in the project.
meillo@87	211 .BU
meillo@87	212 Depending on a library that provides the function.
meillo@87	213 .BU
meillo@87	214 Depending on a program that provides the function.
meillo@87	215 .P
meillo@159	216 .\" XXX Rework sentence
meillo@159	217 While adding the function originally to the project increases the
meillo@76	218 code size most and requires most maintenance and development work,
meillo@87	219 it makes the project most independent of other software.
meillo@87	220 Using libraries or external programs require less maintenance work
meillo@87	221 but introduces dependencies on external software.
meillo@87	222 Programs have the smallest interfaces and provide the best separation
meillo@87	223 but possibly limit the information exchange.
meillo@87	224 External libraries are stronger connected than external programs,
meillo@87	225 thus information can be exchanged more flexible.
meillo@87	226 Adding code to a project increases maintenance work.
meillo@87	227 .\" XXX ref
meillo@159	228 Implementing complex functions in the project itself adds
meillo@87	229 a lot of code.
meillo@87	230 This should be avoided if possible.
meillo@66	231 Hence, the dependencies only change in kind, not in their existence.
meillo@66	232 In mmh, library dependencies on
meillo@66	233 .Pn libsasl2
meillo@66	234 and
meillo@66	235 .Pn libcrypto /\c
meillo@66	236 .Pn libssl
meillo@159	237 were traded against program dependencies on an MSA and an MRA.
meillo@159	238 This also meant trading build-time dependencies against run-time
meillo@87	239 dependencies.
meillo@66	240 Besides program dependencies providing the stronger separation
meillo@66	241 and being more flexible, they also allowed
meillo@66	242 over 6\\|000 lines of code to be removed from mmh.
meillo@66	243 This made mmh's code base about 12\\|% smaller.
meillo@87	244 Reducing the project's code size by such an amount without actually
meillo@87	245 losing functionality is a convincing argument.
meillo@87	246 Actually, as external MSAs and MRAs are likely superior to the
meillo@87	247 project's internal versions, the common user even gains functionality.
meillo@66	248 .P
meillo@76	249 Users of MH should not have problems to set up an external MSA and MRA.
meillo@60	250 Also, the popular MSAs and MRAs have large communities and a lot
meillo@60	251 of documentation available.
meillo@87	252 Choices for MSAs range from full-featured MTAs like
meillo@159	253 .\" XXX refs
meillo@60	254 .I Postfix
meillo@87	255 over mid-size MTAs like
meillo@60	256 .I masqmail
meillo@60	257 and
meillo@60	258 .I dma
meillo@60	259 to small forwarders like
meillo@60	260 .I ssmtp
meillo@60	261 and
meillo@60	262 .I nullmailer .
meillo@60	263 Choices for MRAs include
meillo@60	264 .I fetchmail ,
meillo@60	265 .I getmail ,
meillo@60	266 .I mpop
meillo@60	267 and
meillo@60	268 .I fdm .
meillo@60	269
meillo@60	270
meillo@100	271 .H2 "Non-MUA Tools
meillo@60	272 .P
meillo@87	273 One goal of mmh is to remove the tools that are not part of the MUA's task.
meillo@89	274 Further more, any tools that don't improve the MUA's job significantly
meillo@87	275 should be removed.
meillo@87	276 Loosely related and rarely used tools distract from the lean appearance.
meillo@87	277 They require maintenance work without adding much to the core task.
meillo@125	278 By removing these tools, the project shall become more streamlined
meillo@87	279 and focused.
meillo@76	280 In mmh the following tools are not available anymore:
meillo@62	281 .BU
meillo@58	282 .Pn conflict
meillo@87	283 was removed
meillo@76	284 .Ci 8b235097cbd11d728c07b966cf131aa7133ce5a9
meillo@87	285 because it is a mail system maintenance tool that is not MUA-related.
meillo@87	286 It even checked
meillo@58	287 .Fn /etc/passwd
meillo@58	288 and
meillo@58	289 .Fn /etc/group
meillo@87	290 for consistency, which is completely unrelated to email.
meillo@87	291 A tool like
meillo@87	292 .Pn conflict
meillo@87	293 is surely useful, but it should not be shipped with mmh.
meillo@76	294 .\" XXX historic reasons?
meillo@62	295 .BU
meillo@58	296 .Pn rcvtty
meillo@87	297 was removed
meillo@87	298 .Ci 14767c94b3827be7c867196467ed7aea5f6f49b0
meillo@89	299 because its use case of writing to the user's terminal
meillo@159	300 on receival of mail is obsolete.
meillo@87	301 If users like to be informed of new mail, the shell's
meillo@58	302 .Ev MAILPATH
meillo@87	303 variable or graphical notifications are technically more appealing.
meillo@100	304 Writing directly to terminals is hardly ever wanted today.
meillo@62	305 If though one wants to have it this way, the standard tool
meillo@58	306 .Pn write
meillo@58	307 can be used in a way similar to:
meillo@82	308 .VS
meillo@58	309 scan -file - \| write `id -un`
meillo@82	310 VE
meillo@62	311 .BU
meillo@58	312 .Pn viamail
meillo@159	313 .\" XXX was macht viamail
meillo@87	314 was removed
meillo@87	315 .Ci eda72d6a7a7c20ff123043fb7f19c509ea01f932
meillo@87	316 when the new attachment system was activated, because
meillo@58	317 .Pn forw
meillo@76	318 could then cover the task itself.
meillo@62	319 The program
meillo@58	320 .Pn sendfiles
meillo@62	321 was rewritten as a shell script wrapper around
meillo@58	322 .Pn forw .
meillo@76	323 .Ci 0e82199cf3c991a173e0ac8aa776efdb3ded61e6
meillo@62	324 .BU
meillo@58	325 .Pn msgchk
meillo@159	326 .\" XXX was macht msgchk
meillo@87	327 was removed
meillo@87	328 .Ci bb9360ead7eb7a3fedcce2eeedfc660014e41dbe ,
meillo@87	329 because it lost its use case when POP support was removed.
meillo@76	330 A call to
meillo@58	331 .Pn msgchk
meillo@87	332 provided hardly more information than:
meillo@82	333 .VS
meillo@58	334 ls -l /var/mail/meillo
meillo@82	335 VE
meillo@100	336 It did distinguish between old and new mail, but
meillo@100	337 this detail information can be retrieved with
meillo@76	338 .Pn stat (1),
meillo@62	339 too.
meillo@100	340 A small shell script could be written to print the information
meillo@76	341 in a similar way, if truly necessary.
meillo@76	342 As mmh's
meillo@76	343 .Pn inc
meillo@87	344 only incorporates mail from the user's local maildrop,
meillo@62	345 and thus no data transfers over slow networks are involved,
meillo@76	346 there's hardly any need to check for new mail before incorporating it.
meillo@62	347 .BU
meillo@58	348 .Pn msh
meillo@87	349 was removed
meillo@76	350 .Ci 916690191222433a6923a4be54b0d8f6ac01bd02
meillo@87	351 because the tool was in conflict with the philosophy of MH.
meillo@76	352 It provided an interactive shell to access the features of MH,
meillo@159	353 but it wasn't just a shell tailored to the needs of mail handling.
meillo@76	354 Instead it was one large program that had several MH tools built in.
meillo@76	355 This conflicts with the major feature of MH of being a tool chest.
meillo@76	356 .Pn msh 's
meillo@159	357 main use case had been accessing Bulletin Boards, which have ceased to
meillo@62	358 be popular.
meillo@62	359 .P
meillo@62	360 Removing
meillo@58	361 .Pn msh ,
meillo@76	362 together with the truly archaic code relicts
meillo@58	363 .Pn vmh
meillo@58	364 and
meillo@58	365 .Pn wmh ,
meillo@62	366 saved more than 7\\|000 lines of C code \(en
meillo@66	367 about 15\\|% of the project's original source code amount.
meillo@100	368 Having less code \(en with equal readability, of course \(en
meillo@76	369 for the same functionality is an advantage.
meillo@63	370 Less code means less bugs and less maintenance work.
meillo@76	371 As
meillo@63	372 .Pn rcvtty
meillo@63	373 and
meillo@63	374 .Pn msgchk
meillo@87	375 are assumed to be rarely used and can be implemented in different ways,
meillo@87	376 why should one keep them?
meillo@125	377 Removing them streamlines mmh.
meillo@63	378 .Pn viamail 's
meillo@63	379 use case is now partly obsolete and partly covered by
meillo@63	380 .Pn forw ,
meillo@76	381 hence there's no reason to still maintain it.
meillo@63	382 .Pn conflict
meillo@76	383 is not related to the mail client, and
meillo@63	384 .Pn msh
meillo@63	385 conflicts with the basic concept of MH.
meillo@76	386 Theses two tools might still be useful, but they should not be part of mmh.
meillo@63	387 .P
meillo@76	388 Finally, there's
meillo@76	389 .Pn slocal .
meillo@76	390 .Pn slocal
meillo@76	391 is an MDA and thus not directly MUA-related.
meillo@100	392 It should be removed from mmh, because including it conflicts with
meillo@100	393 the idea that mmh is a MUA only.
meillo@100	394 .Pn slocal
meillo@100	395 should rather become a separate project.
meillo@87	396 However,
meillo@76	397 .Pn slocal
meillo@76	398 provides rule-based processing of messages, like filing them into
meillo@76	399 different folders, which is otherwise not available in mmh.
meillo@87	400 Although
meillo@76	401 .Pn slocal
meillo@87	402 does neither pull in dependencies nor does it include a separate
meillo@154	403 technical area (cf. Sec.
meillo@154	404 .Cf mail-transfer-facilities ),
meillo@154	405 still,
meillo@100	406 it accounts for about 1\\|000 lines of code that need to be maintained.
meillo@76	407 As
meillo@76	408 .Pn slocal
meillo@76	409 is almost self-standing, it should be split off into a separate project.
meillo@76	410 This would cut the strong connection between the MUA mmh and the MDA
meillo@76	411 .Pn slocal .
meillo@87	412 For anyone not using MH,
meillo@87	413 .Pn slocal
meillo@87	414 would become yet another independent MDA, like
meillo@87	415 .I procmail .
meillo@100	416 Then
meillo@87	417 .Pn slocal
meillo@100	418 could be installed without the complete MH system.
meillo@76	419 Likewise, mmh users could decide to use
meillo@76	420 .I procmail
meillo@87	421 without having a second, unused MDA,
meillo@87	422 .Pn slocal ,
meillo@76	423 installed.
meillo@100	424 That appears to be conceptionally the best solution.
meillo@76	425 Yet,
meillo@76	426 .Pn slocal
meillo@87	427 is not split off.
meillo@100	428 I defer the decision over
meillo@78	429 .Pn slocal
meillo@100	430 in need for deeper investigation.
meillo@100	431 In the meanwhile, it remains part of mmh.
meillo@159	432 However, its continued existence is not significant because
meillo@100	433 .Pn slocal
meillo@100	434 is unrelated to the rest of the project.
meillo@0	435
meillo@58	436
meillo@133	437
meillo@134	438 .H2 "Displaying Messages
meillo@155	439 .Id mhshow
meillo@131	440 .P
meillo@133	441 Since the very beginning, already in the first concept paper,
meillo@159	442 .\" XXX ref!!!
meillo@58	443 .Pn show
meillo@62	444 had been MH's message display program.
meillo@58	445 .Pn show
meillo@76	446 mapped message numbers and sequences to files and invoked
meillo@58	447 .Pn mhl
meillo@89	448 to have the files formatted.
meillo@88	449 With MIME, this approach wasn't sufficient anymore.
meillo@100	450 MIME messages can consist of multiple parts. Some parts are not
meillo@100	451 directly displayable and text content might be encoded in
meillo@58	452 foreign charsets.
meillo@58	453 .Pn show 's
meillo@76	454 understanding of messages and
meillo@58	455 .Pn mhl 's
meillo@88	456 display capabilities couldn't cope with the task any longer.
meillo@62	457 .P
meillo@88	458 Instead of extending these tools, additional tools were written from
meillo@88	459 scratch and added to the MH tool chest.
meillo@88	460 Doing so is encouraged by the tool chest approach.
meillo@88	461 Modular design is a great advantage for extending a system,
meillo@88	462 as new tools can be added without interfering with existing ones.
meillo@62	463 First, the new MIME features were added in form of the single program
meillo@58	464 .Pn mhn .
meillo@58	465 The command
meillo@82	466 .Cl "mhn -show 42
meillo@58	467 would show the MIME message numbered 42.
meillo@58	468 With the 1.0 release of nmh in February 1999, Richard Coleman finished
meillo@58	469 the split of
meillo@58	470 .Pn mhn
meillo@88	471 into a set of specialized tools, which together covered the
meillo@88	472 multiple aspects of MIME.
meillo@88	473 One of them was
meillo@69	474 .Pn mhshow ,
meillo@88	475 which replaced
meillo@88	476 .Cl "mhn -show" .
meillo@88	477 It was capable of displaying MIME messages appropriately.
meillo@62	478 .P
meillo@88	479 From then on, two message display tools were part of nmh,
meillo@76	480 .Pn show
meillo@76	481 and
meillo@76	482 .Pn mhshow .
meillo@88	483 To ease the life of users,
meillo@69	484 .Pn show
meillo@69	485 was extended to automatically hand the job over to
meillo@69	486 .Pn mhshow
meillo@69	487 if displaying the message would be beyond
meillo@69	488 .Pn show 's
meillo@69	489 abilities.
meillo@88	490 In consequence, the user would simply invoke
meillo@69	491 .Pn show
meillo@69	492 (possibly through
meillo@69	493 .Pn next
meillo@69	494 or
meillo@69	495 .Pn prev )
meillo@69	496 and get the message printed with either
meillo@69	497 .Pn show
meillo@69	498 or
meillo@69	499 .Pn mhshow ,
meillo@69	500 whatever was more appropriate.
meillo@69	501 .P
meillo@69	502 Having two similar tools for essentially the same task is redundant.
meillo@88	503 Usually,
meillo@88	504 users wouldn't distinguish between
meillo@88	505 .Pn show
meillo@88	506 and
meillo@88	507 .Pn mhshow
meillo@88	508 in their daily mail reading.
meillo@88	509 Having two separate display programs was therefore mainly unnecessary
meillo@88	510 from a user's point of view.
meillo@88	511 Besides, the development of both programs needed to be in sync,
meillo@76	512 to ensure that the programs behaved in a similar way,
meillo@76	513 because they were used like a single tool.
meillo@76	514 Different behavior would have surprised the user.
meillo@69	515 .P
meillo@69	516 Today, non-MIME messages are rather seen to be a special case of
meillo@100	517 MIME messages, although it is the other way round.
meillo@69	518 As
meillo@69	519 .Pn mhshow
meillo@159	520 had already been able to display non-MIME messages, it appeared natural
meillo@69	521 to drop
meillo@69	522 .Pn show
meillo@69	523 in favor of using
meillo@69	524 .Pn mhshow
meillo@69	525 exclusively.
meillo@88	526 .Ci 4c1efddfd499300c7e74263e57d8aa137e84c853
meillo@88	527 Removing
meillo@88	528 .Pn show
meillo@88	529 is no loss in function, because functionally
meillo@88	530 .Pn mhshow
meillo@88	531 covers it completely.
meillo@88	532 The old behavior of
meillo@88	533 .Pn show
meillo@88	534 can still be emulated with the simple command line:
meillo@88	535 .VS
meillo@88	536 mhl `mhpath c`
meillo@88	537 VE
meillo@88	538 .P
meillo@76	539 For convenience,
meillo@76	540 .Pn mhshow
meillo@88	541 was renamed to
meillo@88	542 .Pn show
meillo@88	543 after
meillo@88	544 .Pn show
meillo@88	545 was gone.
meillo@88	546 It is clear that such a rename may confuse future developers when
meillo@88	547 trying to understand the history.
meillo@88	548 Nevertheless, I consider the convenience on the user's side,
meillo@88	549 to call
meillo@88	550 .Pn show
meillo@88	551 when they want a message to be displayed, to outweigh the inconvenience
meillo@88	552 on the developer's side when understanding the project history.
meillo@69	553 .P
meillo@88	554 To prepare for the transition,
meillo@69	555 .Pn mhshow
meillo@69	556 was reworked to behave more like
meillo@69	557 .Pn show
meillo@69	558 first.
meillo@154	559 (cf. Sec.
meillo@154	560 .Cf mhshow )
meillo@164	561 .\" XXX code commits?
meillo@88	562 Once the tools behaved more alike, the replacing appeared to be
meillo@88	563 even more natural.
meillo@88	564 Today, mmh's new
meillo@69	565 .Pn show
meillo@159	566 has become the one single message display program once more,
meillo@159	567 with the difference
meillo@88	568 that today it handles MIME messages as well as non-MIME messages.
meillo@88	569 The outcome of the transition is one program less to maintain,
meillo@88	570 no second display program for users to deal with,
meillo@88	571 and less system complexity.
meillo@69	572 .P
meillo@88	573 Still, removing the old
meillo@69	574 .Pn show
meillo@88	575 hurts in one regard: It had been such a simple program.
meillo@159	576 Its lean elegance is missing from the new
meillo@159	577 .Pn show ,
meillo@159	578 .\" XXX
meillo@159	579 however there is no alternative;
meillo@159	580 supporting MIME demands higher essential complexity.
meillo@58	581
meillo@134	582 .ig
meillo@134	583 XXX
meillo@134	584 Consider including text on scan listings here
meillo@58	585
meillo@134	586 Scan listings shall not contain body content. Hence, removed this feature.
meillo@134	587 Scan listings shall operator on message headers and non-message information
meillo@134	588 only. Displaying the beginning of the body complicates everything too much.
meillo@134	589 That's no surprise, because it's something completely different. If you
meillo@134	590 want to examine the body, then use show(1)/mhshow(1).
meillo@134	591 Changed the default scan formats accordingly.
meillo@134	592 .Ci 70b2643e0da8485174480c644ad9785c84f5bff4
meillo@134	593 ..
meillo@131	594
meillo@131	595
meillo@131	596
meillo@133	597
meillo@100	598 .H2 "Configure Options
meillo@58	599 .P
meillo@76	600 Customization is a double-edged sword.
meillo@76	601 It allows better suiting setups, but not for free.
meillo@76	602 There is the cost of code complexity to be able to customize.
meillo@76	603 There is the cost of less tested setups, because there are
meillo@72	604 more possible setups and especially corner-cases.
meillo@159	605 Additionally, there is the cost of choice itself.
meillo@76	606 The code complexity directly affects the developers.
meillo@72	607 Less tested code affects both, users and developers.
meillo@159	608 The problem of choice affects the users, for once by having to choose,
meillo@159	609 but also by more complex interfaces that require more documentation.
meillo@159	610 Whenever options add few advantages but increase the complexity of the
meillo@159	611 system, they should be considered for removal.
meillo@72	612 I have reduced the number of project-specific configure options from
meillo@72	613 fifteen to three.
meillo@74	614
meillo@76	615 .U3 "Mail Transfer Facilities
meillo@74	616 .P
meillo@85	617 With the removal of the mail transfer facilities five configure
meillo@85	618 options vanished:
meillo@85	619 .P
meillo@85	620 The switches
meillo@85	621 .Sw --with-tls
meillo@85	622 and
meillo@85	623 .Sw --with-cyrus-sasl
meillo@89	624 had activated the support for transfer encryption and authentication.
meillo@159	625 .\" XXX cf
meillo@159	626 .\" XXX gruende kurz wiederholen
meillo@85	627 This is not needed anymore.
meillo@85	628 .Ci fecd5d34f65597a4dfa16aeabea7d74b191532c3
meillo@85	629 .Ci 156d35f6425bea4c1ed3c4c79783dc613379c65b
meillo@85	630 .P
meillo@159	631 .\" XXX cf
meillo@159	632 .\" XXX ``For the same reason ...''
meillo@85	633 The configure switch
meillo@85	634 .Sw --enable-pop
meillo@85	635 activated the message retrieval facility.
meillo@85	636 The code area that would be conditionally compiled in for TLS and SASL
meillo@85	637 support had been small.
meillo@85	638 The conditionally compiled code area for POP support had been much larger.
meillo@85	639 Whereas the code base changes would only slightly change on toggling
meillo@85	640 TLS or SASL support, it changed much on toggling POP support.
meillo@85	641 The changes in the code base could hardly be overviewed.
meillo@159	642 By having POP support togglable, a second code base had been created,
meillo@85	643 one that needed to be tested.
meillo@85	644 This situation is basically similar for the conditional TLS and SASL
meillo@85	645 code, but there the changes are minor and can yet be overviewed.
meillo@85	646 Still, conditional compilation of a code base creates variations
meillo@85	647 of the original program.
meillo@85	648 More variations require more testing and maintenance work.
meillo@85	649 .P
meillo@85	650 Two other options only specified default configuration values:
meillo@100	651 .Sw --with-mts
meillo@164	652 defined the default transport service.
meillo@85	653 .Ci f6aa95b724fd8c791164abe7ee5468bf5c34f226
meillo@85	654 With
meillo@100	655 .Sw --with-smtpservers
meillo@164	656 default SMTP servers could be specified.
meillo@72	657 .Ci 128545e06224233b7e91fc4c83f8830252fe16c9
meillo@164	658 Both of them became irrelevant when the SMTP transport service was removed.
meillo@164	659 .\" XXX code ref
meillo@164	660 In mmh, all messages are handed over to
meillo@164	661 .Pn sendmail
meillo@164	662 for transportation.
meillo@164	663
meillo@72	664
meillo@74	665 .U3 "Backup Prefix
meillo@74	666 .P
meillo@76	667 The backup prefix is the string that was prepended to message
meillo@76	668 filenames to tag them as deleted.
meillo@76	669 By default it had been the comma character `\f(CW,\fP'.
meillo@159	670 .\" XXX Zeitlich ordnen
meillo@78	671 In July 2000, Kimmo Suominen introduced
meillo@78	672 the configure option
meillo@78	673 .Sw --with-hash-backup
meillo@78	674 to change the default to the hash symbol `\f(CW#\fP'.
meillo@78	675 The choice was probably personal preference, because first, the
meillo@78	676 option was named
meillo@78	677 .Sw --with-backup-prefix.
meillo@78	678 and had the prefix symbol as argument.
meillo@100	679 But giving the hash symbol as argument caused too many problems
meillo@100	680 for Autoconf,
meillo@100	681 thus the option was limited to use the hash symbol as the default prefix.
meillo@100	682 This supports the assumption, that the choice for the hash was
meillo@100	683 personal preference only.
meillo@100	684 Being related or not, words that start with the hash symbol
meillo@78	685 introduce a comment in the Unix shell.
meillo@72	686 Thus, the command line
meillo@72	687 .Cl "rm #13 #15
meillo@72	688 calls
meillo@72	689 .Pn rm
meillo@72	690 without arguments because the first hash symbol starts the comment
meillo@72	691 that reaches until the end of the line.
meillo@72	692 To delete the backup files,
meillo@72	693 .Cl "rm ./#13 ./#15"
meillo@72	694 needs to be used.
meillo@100	695 Using the hash as backup prefix can be seen as a precaution against
meillo@78	696 data loss.
meillo@78	697 .P
meillo@159	698 First, I removed the configure option but added the profile entry
meillo@72	699 .Pe backup-prefix ,
meillo@72	700 which allows to specify an arbitrary string as backup prefix.
meillo@72	701 .Ci 6c40d481d661d532dd527eaf34cebb6d3f8ed086
meillo@76	702 Profile entries are the common method to change mmh's behavior.
meillo@76	703 This change did not remove the choice but moved it to a location where
meillo@72	704 it suited better.
meillo@76	705 .P
meillo@78	706 Eventually, however, the new trash folder concept
meillo@154	707 (cf. Sec.
meillo@154	708 .Cf trash-folder )
meillo@164	709 removed the need for the backup prefix completely.
meillo@78	710 .Ci 8edc5aaf86f9f77124664f6801bc6c6cdf258173
meillo@133	711 .Ci ca0b3e830b86700d9e5e31b1784de2bdcaf58fc5
meillo@133	712
meillo@76	713
meillo@76	714 .U3 "Editor and Pager
meillo@74	715 .P
meillo@74	716 The two configure options
meillo@74	717 .CW --with-editor=EDITOR
meillo@74	718 .CW --with-pager=PAGER
meillo@74	719 were used to specify the default editor and pager at configure time.
meillo@109	720 Doing so at configure time made sense in the eighties,
meillo@76	721 when the set of available editors and pagers varied much across
meillo@76	722 different systems.
meillo@89	723 Today, the situation is more homogeneous.
meillo@74	724 The programs
meillo@74	725 .Pn vi
meillo@74	726 and
meillo@74	727 .Pn more
meillo@76	728 can be expected to be available on every Unix system,
meillo@74	729 as they are specified by POSIX since two decades.
meillo@74	730 (The specifications for
meillo@74	731 .Pn vi
meillo@74	732 and
meillo@74	733 .Pn more
meillo@74	734 appeared in
meillo@74	735 .[
meillo@74	736 posix 1987
meillo@74	737 .]
meillo@74	738 and,
meillo@74	739 .[
meillo@74	740 posix 1992
meillo@74	741 .]
meillo@74	742 respectively.)
meillo@74	743 As a first step, these two tools were hard-coded as defaults.
meillo@74	744 .Ci 5d43a99db70c12a673028c7758c20cbe3e13ef5f
meillo@74	745 Not changed were the
meillo@74	746 .Pe editor
meillo@74	747 and
meillo@74	748 .Pe moreproc
meillo@76	749 profile entries, which allowed the user to override the system defaults.
meillo@74	750 Later, the concept was reworked to respect the standard environment
meillo@74	751 variables
meillo@74	752 .Ev VISUAL
meillo@74	753 and
meillo@74	754 .Ev PAGER
meillo@76	755 if they are set.
meillo@74	756 Today, mmh determines the editor to use in the following order,
meillo@74	757 taking the first available and non-empty item:
meillo@74	758 .IP (1)
meillo@74	759 Environment variable
meillo@74	760 .Ev MMHEDITOR
meillo@74	761 .IP (2)
meillo@74	762 Profile entry
meillo@74	763 .Pe Editor
meillo@74	764 .IP (3)
meillo@74	765 Environment variable
meillo@74	766 .Ev VISUAL
meillo@74	767 .IP (4)
meillo@74	768 Environment variable
meillo@74	769 .Ev EDITOR
meillo@74	770 .IP (5)
meillo@74	771 Command
meillo@74	772 .Pn vi .
meillo@74	773 .P
meillo@76	774 .Ci f85f4b7ae62e3d05a945dcd46ead51f0a2a89a9b
meillo@76	775 .P
meillo@89	776 The pager to use is determined in a similar order,
meillo@74	777 also taking the first available and non-empty item:
meillo@74	778 .IP (1)
meillo@74	779 Environment variable
meillo@74	780 .Ev MMHPAGER
meillo@74	781 .IP (2)
meillo@74	782 Profile entry
meillo@74	783 .Pe Pager
meillo@74	784 (replaces
meillo@74	785 .Pe moreproc )
meillo@74	786 .IP (3)
meillo@74	787 Environment variable
meillo@74	788 .Ev PAGER
meillo@74	789 .IP (4)
meillo@74	790 Command
meillo@74	791 .Pn more .
meillo@74	792 .P
meillo@74	793 .Ci 0c4214ea2aec6497d0d67b436bbee9bc1d225f1e
meillo@74	794 .P
meillo@76	795 By respecting the
meillo@74	796 .Ev VISUAL /\c
meillo@74	797 .Ev EDITOR
meillo@74	798 and
meillo@74	799 .Ev PAGER
meillo@76	800 environment variables,
meillo@76	801 the new behavior confirms better to the common style on Unix systems.
meillo@76	802 Additionally, the new approach is more uniform and clearer to users.
meillo@72	803
meillo@72	804
meillo@76	805 .U3 "ndbm
meillo@72	806 .P
meillo@74	807 .Pn slocal
meillo@78	808 used to depend on
meillo@74	809 .I ndbm ,
meillo@74	810 a database library.
meillo@76	811 The database is used to store the `\fLMessage-ID\fP's of all
meillo@76	812 messages delivered.
meillo@74	813 This enables
meillo@74	814 .Pn slocal
meillo@74	815 to suppress delivering the same message to the same user twice.
meillo@74	816 (This features was enabled by the
meillo@74	817 .Sw -suppressdup
meillo@74	818 switch.)
meillo@74	819 .P
meillo@100	820 A variety of versions of the database library exist.
meillo@78	821 .[
meillo@78	822 wolter unix incompat notes dbm
meillo@78	823 .]
meillo@74	824 Complicated autoconf code was needed to detect them correctly.
meillo@74	825 Further more, the configure switches
meillo@74	826 .Sw --with-ndbm=ARG
meillo@74	827 and
meillo@74	828 .Sw --with-ndbmheader=ARG
meillo@74	829 were added to help with difficult setups that would
meillo@78	830 not be detected automatically or correctly.
meillo@74	831 .P
meillo@74	832 By removing the suppress duplicates feature of
meillo@74	833 .Pn slocal ,
meillo@74	834 the dependency on
meillo@74	835 .I ndbm
meillo@78	836 vanished and 120 lines of complex autoconf code could be saved.
meillo@74	837 .Ci ecd6d6a20cb7a1507e3a20d6c4cb3a1cf14c6bbf
meillo@89	838 The change removed functionality too, but that is minor to the
meillo@78	839 improvement by dropping the dependency and the complex autoconf code.
meillo@159	840 .\" XXX argument: slocal ist sowieso nicht teil vom mmh kern
meillo@72	841
meillo@74	842 .U3 "mh-e Support
meillo@72	843 .P
meillo@74	844 The configure option
meillo@74	845 .Sw --disable-mhe
meillo@74	846 was removed when the mh-e support was reworked.
meillo@74	847 Mh-e is the Emacs front-end to MH.
meillo@76	848 It requires MH to provide minor additional functions.
meillo@76	849 The
meillo@76	850 .Sw --disable-mhe
meillo@76	851 configure option could switch these extensions off.
meillo@76	852 After removing the support for old versions of mh-e,
meillo@74	853 only the
meillo@74	854 .Sw -build
meillo@76	855 switches of
meillo@74	856 .Pn forw
meillo@74	857 and
meillo@74	858 .Pn repl
meillo@76	859 are left to be mh-e extensions.
meillo@76	860 They are now always built in because they add little code and complexity.
meillo@76	861 In consequence, the
meillo@74	862 .Sw --disable-mhe
meillo@76	863 configure option was removed
meillo@72	864 .Ci a7ce7b4a580d77b6c2c4d980812beb589aa4c643
meillo@74	865 Removing the option removed a second code setup that would have
meillo@74	866 needed to be tested.
meillo@159	867 .\" XXX datum?
meillo@76	868 This change was first done in nmh and thereafter merged into mmh.
meillo@76	869 .P
meillo@76	870 The interface changes in mmh require mh-e to be adjusted in order
meillo@76	871 to be able to use mmh as back-end.
meillo@76	872 This will require minor changes to mh-e, but removing the
meillo@76	873 .Sw -build
meillo@76	874 switches would require more rework.
meillo@72	875
meillo@74	876 .U3 "Masquerading
meillo@72	877 .P
meillo@74	878 The configure option
meillo@74	879 .Sw --enable-masquerade
meillo@76	880 could take up to three arguments:
meillo@76	881 `draft_from', `mmailid', and `username_extension'.
meillo@74	882 They activated different types of address masquerading.
meillo@74	883 All of them were implemented in the SMTP-speaking
meillo@74	884 .Pn post
meillo@76	885 command, which provided an MSA.
meillo@76	886 Address masquerading is an MTA's task and mmh does not cover
meillo@76	887 this field anymore.
meillo@76	888 Hence, true masquerading needs to be implemented in the external MTA.
meillo@74	889 .P
meillo@74	890 The
meillo@74	891 .I mmailid
meillo@74	892 masquerading type is the oldest one of the three and the only one
meillo@74	893 available in the original MH.
meillo@74	894 It provided a
meillo@74	895 .I username
meillo@74	896 to
meillo@74	897 .I fakeusername
meillo@76	898 mapping, based on the password file's GECOS field.
meillo@74	899 The man page
meillo@74	900 .Mp mh-tailor(5)
meillo@74	901 described the use case as being the following:
meillo@98	902 .QS
meillo@74	903 This is useful if you want the messages you send to always
meillo@74	904 appear to come from the name of an MTA alias rather than your
meillo@74	905 actual account name. For instance, many organizations set up
meillo@74	906 `First.Last' sendmail aliases for all users. If this is
meillo@74	907 the case, the GECOS field for each user should look like:
meillo@74	908 ``First [Middle] Last <First.Last>''
meillo@98	909 .QE
meillo@74	910 .P
meillo@74	911 As mmh sends outgoing mail via the local MTA only,
meillo@76	912 the best location to do such global rewrites is there.
meillo@74	913 Besides, the MTA is conceptionally the right location because it
meillo@74	914 does the reverse mapping for incoming mail (aliasing), too.
meillo@76	915 Further more, masquerading set up there is readily available for all
meillo@74	916 mail software on the system.
meillo@76	917 Hence, mmailid masquerading was removed.
meillo@74	918 .Ci 0836c8000ccb34b59410ef1c15b1b7feac70ce5f
meillo@74	919 .P
meillo@74	920 The
meillo@74	921 .I username_extension
meillo@76	922 masquerading type did not replace the username but would append a suffix,
meillo@76	923 specified by the
meillo@74	924 .Ev USERNAME_EXTENSION
meillo@76	925 environment variable, to it.
meillo@76	926 This provided support for the
meillo@74	927 .I user-extension
meillo@74	928 feature of qmail and the similar
meillo@74	929 .I "plussed user
meillo@74	930 processing of sendmail.
meillo@74	931 The decision to remove this username_extension masquerading was
meillo@74	932 motivated by the fact that
meillo@74	933 .Pn spost
meillo@76	934 hadn't supported it already.
meillo@76	935 .Ci 2abae0bfd0ad5bf898461e50aa4b466d641f23d9
meillo@76	936 Username extensions are possible in mmh, but less convenient to use.
meillo@159	937 .\" XXX covered by next paragraph
meillo@76	938 .\" XXX format file %(getenv USERNAME_EXTENSION)
meillo@74	939 .P
meillo@74	940 The
meillo@74	941 .I draft_from
meillo@74	942 masquerading type instructed
meillo@74	943 .Pn post
meillo@84	944 to use the value of the
meillo@84	945 .Hd From
meillo@84	946 header field as SMTP envelope sender.
meillo@76	947 Sender addresses could be replaced completely.
meillo@74	948 .Ci b14ea6073f77b4359aaf3fddd0e105989db9
meillo@76	949 Mmh offers a kind of masquerading similar in effect, but
meillo@74	950 with technical differences.
meillo@76	951 As mmh does not transfer messages itself, the local MTA has final control
meillo@76	952 over the sender's address. Any masquerading mmh introduces may be reverted
meillo@76	953 by the MTA.
meillo@76	954 In times of pedantic spam checking, an MTA will take care to use
meillo@76	955 sensible envelope sender addresses to keep its own reputation up.
meillo@84	956 Nonetheless, the MUA can set the
meillo@84	957 .Hd From
meillo@84	958 header field and thereby propose
meillo@76	959 a sender address to the MTA.
meillo@74	960 The MTA may then decide to take that one or generate the canonical sender
meillo@74	961 address for use as envelope sender address.
meillo@74	962 .P
meillo@74	963 In mmh, the MTA will always extract the recipient and sender from the
meillo@84	964 message header (\c
meillo@74	965 .Pn sendmail 's
meillo@74	966 .Sw -t
meillo@74	967 switch).
meillo@84	968 The
meillo@84	969 .Hd From
meillo@84	970 header field of the draft may be set arbitrary by the user.
meillo@74	971 If it is missing, the canonical sender address will be generated by the MTA.
meillo@74	972
meillo@74	973 .U3 "Remaining Options
meillo@74	974 .P
meillo@74	975 Two configure options remain in mmh.
meillo@74	976 One is the locking method to use:
meillo@74	977 .Sw --with-locking=[dot\|fcntl\|flock\|lockf] .
meillo@76	978 The idea of removing all methods except the portable dot locking
meillo@76	979 and having that one as the default is appealing, but this change
meillo@76	980 requires deeper technical investigation into the topic.
meillo@76	981 The other option,
meillo@74	982 .Sw --enable-debug ,
meillo@74	983 compiles the programs with debugging symbols and does not strip them.
meillo@74	984 This option is likely to stay.
meillo@72	985
meillo@72	986
meillo@58	987
meillo@63	988
meillo@100	989 .H2 "Command Line Switches
meillo@58	990 .P
meillo@93	991 The command line switches of MH tools follow the X Window style.
meillo@93	992 They are words, introduced by a single dash.
meillo@93	993 For example:
meillo@93	994 .Cl "-truncate" .
meillo@93	995 Every program in mmh has two generic switches:
meillo@93	996 .Sw -help ,
meillo@93	997 to print a short message on how to use the program, and
meillo@159	998 .Sw -Version
meillo@164	999 (with capital `V'), to tell what version of mmh the program belongs to.
meillo@93	1000 .P
meillo@93	1001 Switches change the behavior of programs.
meillo@93	1002 Programs that do one thing in one way require no switches.
meillo@93	1003 In most cases, doing something in exactly one way is too limiting.
meillo@97	1004 If there is basically one task to accomplish, but it should be done
meillo@93	1005 in various ways, switches are a good approach to alter the behavior
meillo@93	1006 of a program.
meillo@93	1007 Changing the behavior of programs provides flexibility and customization
meillo@97	1008 to users, but at the same time it complicates the code, documentation and
meillo@93	1009 usage of the program.
meillo@97	1010 .\" XXX: Ref
meillo@93	1011 Therefore, the number of switches should be kept small.
meillo@93	1012 A small set of well-chosen switches does no harm.
meillo@93	1013 But usually, the number of switches increases over time.
meillo@93	1014 Already in 1985, Rose and Romine have identified this as a major
meillo@93	1015 problem of MH:
meillo@93	1016 .[ [
meillo@93	1017 rose romine real work
meillo@93	1018 .], p. 12]
meillo@98	1019 .QS
meillo@93	1020 A complaint often heard about systems which undergo substantial development
meillo@93	1021 by many people over a number of years, is that more and more options are
meillo@93	1022 introduced which add little to the functionality but greatly increase the
meillo@93	1023 amount of information a user needs to know in order to get useful work done.
meillo@93	1024 This is usually referred to as creeping featurism.
meillo@93	1025 .QP
meillo@93	1026 Unfortunately MH, having undergone six years of off-and-on development by
meillo@93	1027 ten or so well-meaning programmers (the present authors included),
meillo@93	1028 suffers mightily from this.
meillo@98	1029 .QE
meillo@93	1030 .P
meillo@97	1031 Being reluctant to adding new switches \(en or `options',
meillo@97	1032 as Rose and Romine call them \(en is one part of a counter-action,
meillo@97	1033 the other part is removing hardly used switches.
meillo@97	1034 Nmh's tools had lots of switches already implemented,
meillo@97	1035 hence, cleaning up by removing some of them was the more important part
meillo@97	1036 of the counter-action.
meillo@93	1037 Removing existing functionality is always difficult because it
meillo@93	1038 breaks programs that use these functions.
meillo@93	1039 Also, for every obsolete feature, there'll always be someone who still
meillo@93	1040 uses it and thus opposes its removal.
meillo@93	1041 This puts the developer into the position,
meillo@93	1042 where sensible improvements to style are regarded as destructive acts.
meillo@97	1043 Yet, living with the featurism is far worse, in my eyes, because
meillo@97	1044 future needs will demand adding further features,
meillo@93	1045 worsening the situation more and more.
meillo@93	1046 Rose and Romine added in a footnote,
meillo@93	1047 ``[...]
meillo@93	1048 .Pn send
meillo@93	1049 will no doubt acquire an endless number of switches in the years to come.''
meillo@97	1050 Although clearly humorous, the comment points to the nature of the problem.
meillo@97	1051 Refusing to add any new switches would encounter the problem at its root,
meillo@97	1052 but this is not practical.
meillo@97	1053 New needs will require new switches and it would be unwise to block
meillo@97	1054 them strictly.
meillo@97	1055 Nevertheless, removing obsolete switches still is an effective approach
meillo@97	1056 to deal with the problem.
meillo@97	1057 Working on an experimental branch without an established user base,
meillo@97	1058 eased my work because I did not offend users when I removed existing
meillo@110	1059 functions.
meillo@93	1060 .P
meillo@93	1061 Rose and Romine counted 24 visible and 9 more hidden switches for
meillo@93	1062 .Pn send .
meillo@97	1063 In nmh, they increased up to 32 visible and 12 hidden ones.
meillo@97	1064 At the time of writing, no more than 7 visible switches and 1 hidden switch
meillo@97	1065 have remained in mmh's
meillo@97	1066 .Pn send .
meillo@97	1067 (These numbers include two generic switches, help and version.)
meillo@93	1068 .P
meillo@154	1069 The figure displays the number of switches for each of the tools
meillo@159	1070 that is available in both nmh and mmh.
meillo@100	1071 The tools are sorted by the number of switches they had in nmh.
meillo@100	1072 Visible and hidden switches were counted,
meillo@97	1073 but not the generic help and version switches.
meillo@93	1074 Whereas in the beginning of the project, the average tool had 11 switches,
meillo@93	1075 now it has no more than 5 \(en only half as many.
meillo@93	1076 If the `no' switches and similar inverse variant are folded onto
meillo@100	1077 their counter-parts, the average tool had 8 switches in pre-mmh times and
meillo@100	1078 has 4 now.
meillo@93	1079 The total number of functional switches in mmh dropped from 465
meillo@93	1080 to 234.
meillo@58	1081
meillo@93	1082 .KS
meillo@93	1083 .in 1c
meillo@93	1084 .so input/switches.grap
meillo@93	1085 .KE
meillo@58	1086
meillo@93	1087 .P
meillo@93	1088 A part of the switches vanished after functions were removed.
meillo@93	1089 This was the case for network mail transfer, for instance.
meillo@97	1090 Sometimes, however, the work flow was the other way:
meillo@97	1091 I looked through the
meillo@97	1092 .Mp mh-chart (7)
meillo@97	1093 man page to identify the tools with apparently too many switches.
meillo@97	1094 Then considering the value of each of the switches by examining
meillo@97	1095 the tool's man page and source code, aided by recherche and testing.
meillo@97	1096 This way, the removal of functions was suggested by the aim to reduce
meillo@97	1097 the number of switches per command.
meillo@97	1098
meillo@58	1099
meillo@93	1100 .U3 "Draft Folder Facility
meillo@93	1101 .P
meillo@100	1102 A change early in the project was the complete transition from
meillo@93	1103 the single draft message to the draft folder facility.
meillo@97	1104 .Ci 337338b404931f06f0db2119c9e145e8ca5a9860
meillo@164	1105 .\" XXX ref to section ...
meillo@109	1106 The draft folder facility was introduced in the mid-eighties, when
meillo@100	1107 Rose and Romine called it a ``relatively new feature''.
meillo@93	1108 .[
meillo@93	1109 rose romine real work
meillo@93	1110 .]
meillo@110	1111 Since then, the facility had existed but was inactive by default.
meillo@93	1112 The default activation and the related rework of the tools made it
meillo@93	1113 possible to remove the
meillo@93	1114 .Sw -[no]draftfolder ,
meillo@93	1115 and
meillo@93	1116 .Sw -draftmessage
meillo@93	1117 switches from
meillo@93	1118 .Pn comp ,
meillo@93	1119 .Pn repl ,
meillo@93	1120 .Pn forw ,
meillo@93	1121 .Pn dist ,
meillo@93	1122 .Pn whatnow ,
meillo@93	1123 and
meillo@93	1124 .Pn send .
meillo@97	1125 .Ci 337338b404931f06f0db2119c9e145e8ca5a9860
meillo@97	1126 The only flexibility removed with this change is having multiple
meillo@97	1127 draft folders within one profile.
meillo@97	1128 I consider this a theoretical problem only.
meillo@159	1129 At the same time, the
meillo@93	1130 .Sw -draft
meillo@93	1131 switch of
meillo@93	1132 .Pn anno ,
meillo@93	1133 .Pn refile ,
meillo@93	1134 and
meillo@93	1135 .Pn send
meillo@93	1136 was removed.
meillo@159	1137 The special treatment of \fIthe\fP draft message became irrelevant after
meillo@93	1138 the rework of the draft system.
meillo@159	1139 (cf. Sec.
meillo@154	1140 .Cf draft-folder )
meillo@164	1141 Furthermore,
meillo@95	1142 .Pn comp
meillo@164	1143 no longer needs a
meillo@95	1144 .Sw -file
meillo@164	1145 switch as the draft folder facility together with the
meillo@95	1146 .Sw -form
meillo@164	1147 switch are sufficient.
meillo@93	1148
meillo@95	1149
meillo@102	1150 .U3 "In Place Editing
meillo@93	1151 .P
meillo@93	1152 .Pn anno
meillo@93	1153 had the switches
meillo@93	1154 .Sw -[no]inplace
meillo@100	1155 to either annotate the message in place and thus preserve hard links,
meillo@93	1156 or annotate a copy to replace the original message, breaking hard links.
meillo@97	1157 Following the assumption that linked messages should truly be the
meillo@97	1158 same message, and annotating it should not break the link, the
meillo@93	1159 .Sw -[no]inplace
meillo@93	1160 switches were removed and the previous default
meillo@93	1161 .Sw -inplace
meillo@93	1162 was made the only behavior.
meillo@97	1163 .Ci c8195849d2e366c569271abb0f5f60f4ebf0b4d0
meillo@93	1164 The
meillo@93	1165 .Sw -[no]inplace
meillo@93	1166 switches of
meillo@93	1167 .Pn repl ,
meillo@93	1168 .Pn forw ,
meillo@93	1169 and
meillo@93	1170 .Pn dist
meillo@93	1171 could be removed, too, as they were simply passed through to
meillo@93	1172 .Pn anno .
meillo@93	1173 .P
meillo@93	1174 .Pn burst
meillo@93	1175 also had
meillo@93	1176 .Sw -[no]inplace
meillo@95	1177 switches, but with different meaning.
meillo@95	1178 With
meillo@95	1179 .Sw -inplace ,
meillo@95	1180 the digest had been replaced by the table of contents (i.e. the
meillo@110	1181 introduction text) and the burst messages were placed right
meillo@95	1182 after this message, renumbering all following messages.
meillo@95	1183 Also, any trailing text of the digest was lost, though,
meillo@95	1184 in practice, it usually consists of an end-of-digest marker only.
meillo@95	1185 Nontheless, this behavior appeared less elegant than the
meillo@95	1186 .Sw -noinplace
meillo@95	1187 behavior, which already had been the default.
meillo@95	1188 Nmh's
meillo@95	1189 .Mp burst (1)
meillo@95	1190 man page reads:
meillo@98	1191 .QS
meillo@164	1192 If
meillo@164	1193 .Sw -noinplace
meillo@164	1194 is given, each digest is preserved, no table
meillo@93	1195 of contents is produced, and the messages contained within
meillo@93	1196 the digest are placed at the end of the folder. Other messages
meillo@93	1197 are not tampered with in any way.
meillo@98	1198 .QE
meillo@95	1199 .LP
meillo@93	1200 The decision to drop the
meillo@93	1201 .Sw -inplace
meillo@95	1202 behavior was supported by the code complexity and the possible data loss
meillo@95	1203 it caused.
meillo@93	1204 .Sw -noinplace
meillo@95	1205 was chosen to be the definitive behavior.
meillo@97	1206 .Ci 68a686adeb39223a5e1ad35e4a24890ec053679d
meillo@93	1207
meillo@95	1208
meillo@95	1209 .U3 "Forms and Format Strings
meillo@93	1210 .P
meillo@95	1211 Historically, the tools that had
meillo@95	1212 .Sw -form
meillo@95	1213 switches to supply a form file had
meillo@95	1214 .Sw -format
meillo@95	1215 switches as well to supply the contents of a form file as a string
meillo@95	1216 on the command line directly.
meillo@95	1217 In consequence, the following two lines equaled:
meillo@95	1218 .VS
meillo@95	1219 scan -form scan.mailx
meillo@95	1220 scan -format "`cat .../scan.mailx`"
meillo@95	1221 VE
meillo@95	1222 The
meillo@95	1223 .Sw -format
meillo@95	1224 switches were dropped in favor for extending the
meillo@95	1225 .Sw -form
meillo@95	1226 switches.
meillo@97	1227 .Ci f51956be123db66b00138f80464d06f030dbb88d
meillo@95	1228 If their argument starts with an equal sign (`='),
meillo@95	1229 then the rest of the argument is taken as a format string,
meillo@95	1230 otherwise the arguments is treated as the name of a format file.
meillo@95	1231 Thus, now the following two lines equal:
meillo@95	1232 .VS
meillo@95	1233 scan -form scan.mailx
meillo@95	1234 scan -form "=`cat .../scan.mailx`"
meillo@95	1235 VE
meillo@95	1236 This rework removed the prefix collision between
meillo@95	1237 .Sw -form
meillo@95	1238 and
meillo@95	1239 .Sw -format .
meillo@95	1240 Now, typing
meillo@95	1241 .Sw -fo
meillo@95	1242 suffices to specify form or format string.
meillo@95	1243 .P
meillo@95	1244 The different meaning of
meillo@95	1245 .Sw -format
meillo@95	1246 for
meillo@95	1247 .Pn repl
meillo@95	1248 and
meillo@95	1249 .Pn forw
meillo@95	1250 was removed in mmh.
meillo@95	1251 .Pn forw
meillo@95	1252 was completely switched to MIME-type forwarding, thus removing the
meillo@95	1253 .Sw -[no]format .
meillo@97	1254 .Ci 6e271608b7b9c23771523f88d23a4d3593010cf1
meillo@95	1255 For
meillo@95	1256 .Pn repl ,
meillo@95	1257 the
meillo@95	1258 .Sw -[no]format
meillo@95	1259 switches were reworked to
meillo@95	1260 .Sw -[no]filter
meillo@95	1261 switches.
meillo@97	1262 .Ci 67411b1f95d6ec987b4c732459e1ba8a8ac192c6
meillo@95	1263 The
meillo@95	1264 .Sw -format
meillo@95	1265 switches of
meillo@95	1266 .Pn send
meillo@95	1267 and
meillo@95	1268 .Pn post ,
meillo@95	1269 which had a third meaning,
meillo@95	1270 were removed likewise.
meillo@97	1271 .Ci f3cb7cde0e6f10451b6848678d95860d512224b9
meillo@95	1272 Eventually, the ambiguity of the
meillo@95	1273 .Sw -format
meillo@95	1274 switches was resolved by not anymore having any such switch in mmh.
meillo@95	1275
meillo@95	1276
meillo@95	1277 .U3 "MIME Tools
meillo@95	1278 .P
meillo@95	1279 The MIME tools, which were once part of
meillo@100	1280 .Pn mhn
meillo@164	1281 .\" XXX
meillo@164	1282 (whatever that stood for),
meillo@95	1283 had several switches that added little practical value to the programs.
meillo@95	1284 The
meillo@95	1285 .Sw -[no]realsize
meillo@95	1286 switches of
meillo@95	1287 .Pn mhbuild
meillo@95	1288 and
meillo@95	1289 .Pn mhlist
meillo@97	1290 were removed, doing real size calculations always now
meillo@97	1291 .Ci 8d8f1c3abc586c005c904e52c4adbfe694d2201c ,
meillo@159	1292 as nmh's
meillo@159	1293 .Mp mhbuild (1)
meillo@159	1294 man page states
meillo@95	1295 ``This provides an accurate count at the expense of a small delay.''
meillo@95	1296 This small delay is not noticable on modern systems.
meillo@95	1297 .P
meillo@95	1298 The
meillo@95	1299 .Sw -[no]check
meillo@95	1300 switches were removed together with the support for
meillo@95	1301 .Hd Content-MD5
meillo@95	1302 header fields.
meillo@95	1303 .[
meillo@95	1304 rfc 1864
meillo@95	1305 .]
meillo@97	1306 .Ci 31dc797eb5178970d68962ca8939da3fd9a8efda
meillo@154	1307 (cf. Sec.
meillo@154	1308 .Cf content-md5 )
meillo@95	1309 .P
meillo@95	1310 The
meillo@95	1311 .Sw -[no]ebcdicsafe
meillo@95	1312 and
meillo@95	1313 .Sw -[no]rfc934mode
meillo@95	1314 switches of
meillo@95	1315 .Pn mhbuild
meillo@95	1316 were removed because they are considered obsolete.
meillo@97	1317 .Ci 01a3480928da485b4d6109d36d751dfa71799d58
meillo@97	1318 .Ci 3363e2624dce0eb8164cf8b3f1ab385c8ff72e88
meillo@95	1319 .P
meillo@95	1320 Content caching of external MIME parts, activated with the
meillo@95	1321 .Sw -rcache
meillo@95	1322 and
meillo@95	1323 .Sw -wcache
meillo@95	1324 switches was completely removed.
meillo@97	1325 .Ci d1fefd9f614e4dc3cda16da6c69133c1b2005269
meillo@97	1326 External MIME parts are rare today, having a caching facility
meillo@159	1327 for them appears to be unnecessary.
meillo@95	1328 .P
meillo@95	1329 In pre-MIME times,
meillo@95	1330 .Pn mhl
meillo@95	1331 had covered many tasks that are part of MIME handling today.
meillo@95	1332 Therefore,
meillo@95	1333 .Pn mhl
meillo@95	1334 could be simplified to a large extend, reducing the number of its
meillo@95	1335 switches from 21 to 6.
meillo@97	1336 .Ci 350ad6d3542a07639213cf2a4fe524e829c1e7b6
meillo@97	1337 .Ci 0e46503be3c855bddaeae3843e1b659279c35d70
meillo@95	1338
meillo@95	1339
meillo@95	1340
meillo@95	1341
meillo@95	1342 .U3 "Header Printing
meillo@95	1343 .P
meillo@95	1344 .Pn folder 's
meillo@95	1345 data output is self-explaining enough that
meillo@159	1346 displaying the header line makes little sense.
meillo@95	1347 Hence, the
meillo@95	1348 .Sw -[no]header
meillo@95	1349 switch was removed and headers are never printed.
meillo@97	1350 .Ci 601cc73d1fa05ce96faa728f036d6c51b91701c7
meillo@95	1351 .P
meillo@95	1352 In
meillo@95	1353 .Pn mhlist ,
meillo@95	1354 the
meillo@95	1355 .Sw -[no]header
meillo@95	1356 switches were removed, too.
meillo@97	1357 .Ci b24f96523aaf60e44e04a3ffb1d22e69a13a602f
meillo@95	1358 But in this case headers are always printed,
meillo@95	1359 because the output is not self-explaining.
meillo@95	1360 .P
meillo@95	1361 .Pn scan
meillo@95	1362 also had
meillo@95	1363 .Sw -[no]header
meillo@95	1364 switches.
meillo@95	1365 Printing the header had been sensible until the introduction of
meillo@95	1366 format strings made it impossible to display the column headings.
meillo@95	1367 Only the folder name and the current date remained to be printed.
meillo@95	1368 As this information can be perfectly retrieved by
meillo@95	1369 .Pn folder
meillo@95	1370 and
meillo@95	1371 .Pn date ,
meillo@95	1372 consequently, the switches were removed.
meillo@97	1373 .Ci c477dc5d1d03fa6d9a8ab3dd3508c63cbddc044e
meillo@95	1374 .P
meillo@95	1375 By removing all
meillo@95	1376 .Sw -header
meillo@95	1377 switches, the collision with
meillo@95	1378 .Sw -help
meillo@95	1379 on the first two letters was resolved.
meillo@95	1380 Currently,
meillo@95	1381 .Sw -h
meillo@95	1382 evaluates to
meillo@95	1383 .Sw -help
meillo@95	1384 for all tools of mmh.
meillo@95	1385
meillo@95	1386
meillo@139	1387 .U3 "Suppressing Edits or the Invocation of the WhatNow Shell
meillo@95	1388 .P
meillo@95	1389 The
meillo@95	1390 .Sw -noedit
meillo@100	1391 switch of
meillo@95	1392 .Pn comp ,
meillo@95	1393 .Pn repl ,
meillo@95	1394 .Pn forw ,
meillo@95	1395 .Pn dist ,
meillo@95	1396 and
meillo@95	1397 .Pn whatnow
meillo@95	1398 was removed, but it can now be replaced by specifying
meillo@95	1399 .Sw -editor
meillo@95	1400 with an empty argument.
meillo@97	1401 .Ci 75fca31a5b9d5c1a99c74ab14c94438d8852fba9
meillo@95	1402 (Specifying
meillo@159	1403 .Cl "-editor /bin/true
meillo@95	1404 is nearly the same, only differing by the previous editor being set.)
meillo@95	1405 .P
meillo@95	1406 The more important change is the removal of the
meillo@95	1407 .Sw -nowhatnowproc
meillo@95	1408 switch.
meillo@97	1409 .Ci ee4f43cf2ef0084ec698e4e87159a94c01940622
meillo@95	1410 This switch had introduced an awkward behavior, as explained in nmh's
meillo@95	1411 man page for
meillo@95	1412 .Mp comp (1):
meillo@98	1413 .QS
meillo@164	1414 The
meillo@164	1415 .Sw -editor
meillo@164	1416 .Ar editor
meillo@164	1417 switch indicates the editor to use for
meillo@164	1418 the initial edit. Upon exiting from the editor,
meillo@164	1419 .Pn comp
meillo@164	1420 will invoke the
meillo@164	1421 .Pn whatnow
meillo@164	1422 program. See
meillo@164	1423 .Mp whatnow (1)
meillo@164	1424 for a discussion of available options.
meillo@164	1425 The invocation of this program can be
meillo@164	1426 inhibited by using the
meillo@164	1427 .Sw -nowhatnowproc
meillo@164	1428 switch. (In truth of fact, it is the
meillo@164	1429 .Pn whatnow
meillo@164	1430 program which starts the initial edit.
meillo@164	1431 Hence,
meillo@164	1432 .Sw -nowhatnowproc
meillo@164	1433 will prevent any edit from occurring.)
meillo@98	1434 .QE
meillo@95	1435 .P
meillo@95	1436 Effectively, the
meillo@95	1437 .Sw -nowhatnowproc
meillo@100	1438 switch creates only a draft message.
meillo@95	1439 As
meillo@159	1440 .Cl "-whatnowproc /bin/true
meillo@95	1441 causes the same behavior, the
meillo@95	1442 .Sw -nowhatnowproc
meillo@95	1443 switch was removed for being redundant.
meillo@100	1444 Likely, the
meillo@95	1445 .Sw -nowhatnowproc
meillo@100	1446 switch was intended to be used by front-ends.
meillo@95	1447
meillo@95	1448
meillo@95	1449
meillo@95	1450 .U3 "Various
meillo@95	1451 .BU
meillo@139	1452 With the removal of MMDF maildrop format support,
meillo@139	1453 .Pn packf
meillo@139	1454 and
meillo@139	1455 .Pn rcvpack
meillo@139	1456 no longer needed their
meillo@139	1457 .Sw -mbox
meillo@139	1458 and
meillo@139	1459 .Sw -mmdf
meillo@139	1460 switches.
meillo@139	1461 .Sw -mbox
meillo@154	1462 is the sole behavior now.
meillo@139	1463 .Ci 3916ab66ad5d183705ac12357621ea8661afd3c0
meillo@139	1464 In the same go,
meillo@139	1465 .Pn packf
meillo@139	1466 and
meillo@139	1467 .Pn rcvpack
meillo@154	1468 were reworked and their
meillo@139	1469 .Sw -file
meillo@139	1470 switch became unnecessary.
meillo@139	1471 .Ci ca1023716d4c2ab890696f3e41fa0d94267a940e
meillo@139	1472
meillo@139	1473 .BU
meillo@139	1474 Mmh's tools will no longer clear the screen (\c
meillo@139	1475 .Pn scan 's
meillo@139	1476 and
meillo@139	1477 .Pn mhl 's
meillo@139	1478 .Sw -[no]clear
meillo@139	1479 switches
meillo@139	1480 .Ci e57b17343dcb3ff373ef4dd089fbe778f0c7c270
meillo@139	1481 .Ci 943765e7ac5693ae177fd8d2b5a2440e53ce816e ).
meillo@139	1482 Neither will
meillo@139	1483 .Pn mhl
meillo@139	1484 ring the bell (\c
meillo@139	1485 .Sw -[no]bell
meillo@139	1486 .Ci e11983f44e59d8de236affa5b0d0d3067c192e24 )
meillo@139	1487 nor page the output itself (\c
meillo@139	1488 .Sw -length
meillo@139	1489 .Ci 5b9d883db0318ed2b84bb82dee880d7381f99188 ).
meillo@159	1490 .\" XXX Ref
meillo@139	1491 Generally, the pager to use is no longer specified with the
meillo@139	1492 .Sw -[no]moreproc
meillo@139	1493 command line switches for
meillo@139	1494 .Pn mhl
meillo@139	1495 and
meillo@139	1496 .Pn show /\c
meillo@139	1497 .Pn mhshow .
meillo@139	1498 .Ci 39e87a75b5c2d3572ec72e717720b44af291e88a
meillo@139	1499
meillo@139	1500 .BU
meillo@96	1501 In order to avoid prefix collisions among switch names, the
meillo@95	1502 .Sw -version
meillo@95	1503 switch was renamed to
meillo@95	1504 .Sw -Version
meillo@95	1505 (with capital `V').
meillo@97	1506 .Ci 32b2354dbaf4bf934936eb5b102a4a3d2fdd209a
meillo@95	1507 Every program has the
meillo@95	1508 .Sw -version
meillo@95	1509 switch but its first three letters collided with the
meillo@95	1510 .Sw -verbose
meillo@95	1511 switch, present in many programs.
meillo@95	1512 The rename solved this problem once for all.
meillo@95	1513 Although this rename breaks a basic interface, having the
meillo@95	1514 .Sw -V
meillo@95	1515 abbreviation to display the version information, isn't all too bad.
meillo@139	1516
meillo@95	1517 .BU
meillo@95	1518 .Sw -[no]preserve
meillo@95	1519 of
meillo@95	1520 .Pn refile
meillo@95	1521 was removed because what use was it anyway?
meillo@165	1522 Quoting nmh's man page of
meillo@165	1523 .Mp refile (1):
meillo@98	1524 .QS
meillo@95	1525 Normally when a message is refiled, for each destination
meillo@95	1526 folder it is assigned the number which is one above the current
meillo@95	1527 highest message number in that folder. Use of the
meillo@164	1528 .Sw -preserv
meillo@164	1529 [sic!] switch will override this message renaming, and try
meillo@95	1530 to preserve the number of the message. If a conflict for a
meillo@164	1531 particular folder occurs when using the
meillo@164	1532 .Sw -preserve
meillo@164	1533 switch, then
meillo@164	1534 .Pn refile
meillo@164	1535 will use the next available message number which
meillo@95	1536 is above the message number you wish to preserve.
meillo@98	1537 .QE
meillo@139	1538
meillo@95	1539 .BU
meillo@95	1540 The removal of the
meillo@95	1541 .Sw -[no]reverse
meillo@95	1542 switches of
meillo@95	1543 .Pn scan
meillo@97	1544 .Ci 8edc5aaf86f9f77124664f6801bc6c6cdf258173
meillo@95	1545 is a bug fix, supported by the comments
meillo@95	1546 ``\-[no]reverse under #ifdef BERK (I really HATE this)''
meillo@95	1547 by Rose and
meillo@95	1548 ``Lists messages in reverse order with the `\-reverse' switch.
meillo@95	1549 This should be considered a bug.'' by Romine in the documentation.
meillo@159	1550 .\" XXX Ref: welche datei genau.
meillo@97	1551 The question remains why neither Rose and Romine had fixed this
meillo@109	1552 bug in the eighties when they wrote these comments nor has anyone
meillo@95	1553 thereafter.
meillo@93	1554
meillo@93	1555
meillo@93	1556 .ig
meillo@93	1557
meillo@95	1558 forw: [no]dashstuffing(mhl)
meillo@93	1559
meillo@95	1560 mhshow: [no]pause [no]serialonly
meillo@93	1561
meillo@93	1562 mhmail: resent queued
meillo@93	1563 inc: snoop, (pop)
meillo@93	1564
meillo@95	1565 mhl: [no]faceproc folder sleep
meillo@95	1566 [no]dashstuffing(forw) digest list volume number issue number
meillo@93	1567
meillo@95	1568 prompter: [no]doteof
meillo@93	1569
meillo@93	1570 refile: [no]preserve [no]unlink [no]rmmproc
meillo@93	1571
meillo@95	1572 send: [no]forward [no]mime [no]msgid
meillo@93	1573 [no]push split [no]unique (sasl) width snoop [no]dashstuffing
meillo@93	1574 attach attachformat
meillo@93	1575 whatnow: (noedit) attach
meillo@93	1576
meillo@93	1577 slocal: [no]suppressdups
meillo@93	1578
meillo@95	1579 spost: [no]filter [no]backup width [no]push idanno
meillo@93	1580 [no]check(whom) whom(whom)
meillo@93	1581
meillo@93	1582 whom: ???
meillo@93	1583
meillo@95	1584 ..
meillo@93	1585
meillo@93	1586
meillo@93	1587 .ig
meillo@93	1588
meillo@93	1589 .P
meillo@93	1590 In the best case, all switches are unambiguous on the first character,
meillo@93	1591 or on the three-letter prefix for the `no' variants.
meillo@96	1592 Reducing switch prefix collisions, shortens the necessary prefix length
meillo@93	1593 the user must type.
meillo@93	1594 Having less switches helps best.
meillo@93	1595
meillo@93	1596 ..
meillo@58	1597
meillo@95	1598
meillo@102	1599 .\" XXX: whatnow prompt commands
meillo@102	1600
meillo@102	1601
meillo@95	1602
meillo@95	1603
meillo@133	1604 .\" --------------------------------------------------------------
meillo@74	1605 .H1 "Modernizing
meillo@102	1606 .P
meillo@164	1607 In the more than thirty years of MH's existence, its code base was
meillo@159	1608 increasingly extended.
meillo@118	1609 New features entered the project and became alternatives to the
meillo@118	1610 existing behavior.
meillo@118	1611 Relicts from several decades have gathered in the code base,
meillo@118	1612 but seldom obsolete features were dropped.
meillo@118	1613 This section describes the removing of old code
meillo@118	1614 and the modernizing of the default setup.
meillo@118	1615 It focuses on the functional aspect only;
meillo@154	1616 the non-functional aspects of code style are discussed in Sec.
meillo@154	1617 .Cf code-style .
meillo@58	1618
meillo@58	1619
meillo@100	1620 .H2 "Code Relicts
meillo@0	1621 .P
meillo@159	1622 My position regarding the removal of obsolete functions of mmh,
meillo@159	1623 .\" XXX ``in order to remove old code,''
meillo@159	1624 is much more revolutional than the nmh community appreciates.
meillo@159	1625 Working on an experimental version, I was quickly able to drop
meillo@104	1626 functionality I considered ancient.
meillo@104	1627 The need for consensus with peers would have slowed this process down.
meillo@104	1628 Without the need to justify my decisions, I was able to rush forward.
meillo@110	1629 In December 2011, Paul Vixie motivated the nmh developers to just
meillo@159	1630 .\" XXX ugs
meillo@104	1631 do the work:
meillo@104	1632 .[
meillo@104	1633 paul vixie edginess nmh-workers
meillo@104	1634 .]
meillo@104	1635 .QS
meillo@104	1636 let's stop walking on egg shells with this code base. there's no need to
meillo@104	1637 discuss whether to keep using vfork, just note in [sic!] passing, [...]
meillo@104	1638 we don't need a separate branch for removing vmh
meillo@104	1639 or ridding ourselves of #ifdef's or removing posix replacement functions
meillo@164	1640 or depending on pure ansi/posix ``libc''.
meillo@104	1641 .QP
meillo@164	1642 these things should each be a day or two of work and the ``main branch''
meillo@104	1643 should just be modern. [...]
meillo@104	1644 let's push forward, aggressively.
meillo@104	1645 .QE
meillo@104	1646 .LP
meillo@104	1647 I did so already in the months before.
meillo@104	1648 I pushed forward.
meillo@159	1649 .\" XXX semicolon ?
meillo@104	1650 I simply dropped the cruft.
meillo@104	1651 .P
meillo@104	1652 The decision to drop a feature was based on literature research and
meillo@159	1653 careful thinking, but whether having had contact with this particular
meillo@104	1654 feature within my own computer life served as a rule of thumb.
meillo@159	1655 I explained my reasons in the commit messages
meillo@109	1656 in the version control system.
meillo@104	1657 Hence, others can comprehend my view and argue for undoing the change
meillo@104	1658 if I have missed an important aspect.
meillo@109	1659 I was quick in dropping parts.
meillo@159	1660 I rather re-included falsely dropped parts than going at a slower pace.
meillo@109	1661 Mmh is experimental work; it required tough decisions.
meillo@159	1662 .\" XXX ``exp. work'' schon oft gesagt
meillo@12	1663
meillo@102	1664
meillo@104	1665 .U3 "Forking
meillo@12	1666 .P
meillo@109	1667 Being a tool chest, MH creates many processes.
meillo@104	1668 In earlier times
meillo@104	1669 .Fu fork()
meillo@104	1670 had been an expensive system call, because the process's image needed
meillo@159	1671 to be completely duplicated at once.
meillo@159	1672 This expensive work was especially unnecessary in the commonly occuring
meillo@159	1673 case wherein the image is replaced by a call to
meillo@104	1674 .Fu exec()
meillo@104	1675 right after having forked the child process.
meillo@104	1676 The
meillo@104	1677 .Fu vfork()
meillo@104	1678 system call was invented to speed up this particular case.
meillo@104	1679 It completely omits the duplication of the image.
meillo@104	1680 On old systems this resulted in significant speed ups.
meillo@104	1681 Therefore MH used
meillo@104	1682 .Fu vfork()
meillo@104	1683 whenever possible.
meillo@12	1684 .P
meillo@104	1685 Modern memory management units support copy-on-write semantics, which make
meillo@104	1686 .Fu fork()
meillo@104	1687 almost as fast as
meillo@104	1688 .Fu vfork() .
meillo@104	1689 The man page of
meillo@104	1690 .Mp vfork (2)
meillo@104	1691 in FreeBSD 8.0 states:
meillo@104	1692 .QS
meillo@104	1693 This system call will be eliminated when proper system sharing mechanisms
meillo@104	1694 are implemented. Users should not depend on the memory sharing semantics
meillo@104	1695 of vfork() as it will, in that case, be made synonymous to fork(2).
meillo@104	1696 .QE
meillo@104	1697 .LP
meillo@104	1698 Vixie supports the removal with the note that ``the last
meillo@104	1699 system on which fork was so slow that an mh user would notice it, was
meillo@104	1700 Eunice. that was 1987''.
meillo@104	1701 .[
meillo@104	1702 nmh-workers vixie edginess
meillo@104	1703 .]
meillo@104	1704 I replaced all calls to
meillo@104	1705 .Fu vfork()
meillo@104	1706 with calls to
meillo@104	1707 .Fu fork() .
meillo@109	1708 .Ci 40821f5c1316e9205a08375e7075909cc9968e7d
meillo@104	1709 .P
meillo@104	1710 Related to the costs of
meillo@104	1711 .Fu fork()
meillo@104	1712 is the probability of its success.
meillo@109	1713 In the eighties, on heavy loaded systems, calls to
meillo@104	1714 .Fu fork()
meillo@104	1715 were prone to failure.
meillo@104	1716 Hence, many of the
meillo@104	1717 .Fu fork()
meillo@104	1718 calls in the code were wrapped into loops to retry the
meillo@104	1719 .Fu fork()
meillo@159	1720 several times, to increase the chances to succeed, eventually.
meillo@109	1721 On modern systems, a failing
meillo@104	1722 .Fu fork()
meillo@109	1723 call is unusual.
meillo@104	1724 Hence, in the rare case when
meillo@104	1725 .Fu fork()
meillo@104	1726 fails, mmh programs simply abort.
meillo@109	1727 .Ci 5fbf37ee68e018998ada61eeab73e035b26834b6
meillo@12	1728
meillo@12	1729
meillo@109	1730 .U3 "Header Fields
meillo@104	1731 .BU
meillo@84	1732 The
meillo@84	1733 .Hd Encrypted
meillo@104	1734 header field was introduced by RFC\\|822,
meillo@109	1735 but already marked as legacy in RFC\\|2822.
meillo@109	1736 Today, OpenPGP provides the basis for standardized exchange of encrypted
meillo@104	1737 messages [RFC\\|4880, RFC\\|3156].
meillo@109	1738 Hence, the support for
meillo@104	1739 .Hd Encrypted
meillo@104	1740 header fields is removed in mmh.
meillo@109	1741 .Ci 064527f7b57ab050e5af13e15ad99aeeab125857
meillo@104	1742 .BU
meillo@159	1743 The native support for
meillo@84	1744 .Hd Face
meillo@104	1745 header fields has been removed, as well.
meillo@109	1746 .Ci 8e5be81f784682822f5e868c1bf3c8624682bd23
meillo@104	1747 This feature is similar to the
meillo@84	1748 .Hd X-Face
meillo@84	1749 header field in its intent,
meillo@21	1750 but takes a different approach to store the image.
meillo@84	1751 Instead of encoding the image data directly into the header field,
meillo@109	1752 it contains the hostname and UDP port where the image
meillo@109	1753 date can be retrieved.
meillo@159	1754 There is even a third Face system,
meillo@109	1755 which is the successor of
meillo@109	1756 .Hd X-Face ,
meillo@109	1757 although it re-uses the
meillo@104	1758 .Hd Face
meillo@109	1759 header field.
meillo@109	1760 It was invented in 2005 and supports colored PNG images.
meillo@104	1761 None of the Face systems described here is popular today.
meillo@104	1762 Hence, mmh has no direct support for them.
meillo@104	1763 .BU
meillo@154	1764 .Id content-md5
meillo@104	1765 The
meillo@104	1766 .Hd Content-MD5
meillo@104	1767 header field was introduced by RFC\\|1864.
meillo@104	1768 It provides detection of data corruption during the transfer.
meillo@104	1769 But it can not ensure verbatim end-to-end delivery of the contents
meillo@104	1770 [RFC\\|1864].
meillo@104	1771 The proper approach to verify content integrity in an
meillo@166	1772 end-to-end relationship is the use of digital signatures.
meillo@104	1773 .\" XXX (RFCs FIXME).
meillo@104	1774 On the other hand, transfer protocols should detect corruption during
meillo@109	1775 the transmission.
meillo@109	1776 The TCP includes a checksum field therefore.
meillo@104	1777 These two approaches in combinations render the
meillo@104	1778 .Hd Content-MD5
meillo@104	1779 header field superfluous.
meillo@109	1780 Not a single one out of 4\\|200 messages from two decades
meillo@109	1781 in an nmh-workers mailing list archive contains a
meillo@104	1782 .Hd Content-MD5
meillo@104	1783 header field.
meillo@104	1784 Neither did any of the 60\\|000 messages in my personal mail storage.
meillo@104	1785 Removing the support for this header field,
meillo@104	1786 removed the last place where MD5 computation was needed.
meillo@109	1787 .Ci 31dc797eb5178970d68962ca8939da3fd9a8efda
meillo@104	1788 Hence, the MD5 code could be removed as well.
meillo@104	1789 Over 500 lines of code vanished by this one change.
meillo@104	1790
meillo@104	1791
meillo@104	1792 .U3 "MMDF maildrop support
meillo@21	1793 .P
meillo@104	1794 This type of format is conceptionally similar to the mbox format,
meillo@139	1795 but uses a different message delimiter (`\fL\\1\\1\\1\\1\fP',
meillo@139	1796 commonly written as `\fL^A^A^A^A\fP', instead of `\fLFrom\0\fP').
meillo@104	1797 Mbox is the de-facto standard maildrop format on Unix,
meillo@159	1798 whereas the MMDF maildrop format is now forgotten.
meillo@159	1799 By dropping the MMDF maildrop format support,
meillo@159	1800 mbox became the only packed mailbox format supported in mmh.
meillo@104	1801 .P
meillo@109	1802 The simplifications within the code were moderate.
meillo@109	1803 Mainly, the reading and writing of MMDF mailbox files was removed.
meillo@109	1804 But also, switches of
meillo@109	1805 .Pn packf
meillo@104	1806 and
meillo@109	1807 .Pn rcvpack
meillo@109	1808 could be removed.
meillo@109	1809 .Ci 3916ab66ad5d183705ac12357621ea8661afd3c0
meillo@109	1810 In the message parsing function
meillo@109	1811 .Fn sbr/m_getfld.c ,
meillo@109	1812 knowledge of MMDF packed mail boxes was removed.
meillo@109	1813 .Ci 684ec30d81e1223a282764452f4902ed4ad1c754
meillo@109	1814 Further code structure simplifications may be possible there,
meillo@109	1815 because only one single packed mailbox format is left to be supported.
meillo@104	1816 I have not worked on them yet because
meillo@104	1817 .Fu m_getfld()
meillo@104	1818 is heavily optimized and thus dangerous to touch.
meillo@104	1819 The risk of damaging the intricate workings of the optimized code is
meillo@104	1820 too high.
meillo@104	1821
meillo@12	1822
meillo@101	1823 .U3 "Prompter's Control Keys
meillo@20	1824 .P
meillo@20	1825 The program
meillo@20	1826 .Pn prompter
meillo@104	1827 queries the user to fill in a message form.
meillo@104	1828 When used by
meillo@20	1829 .Pn comp
meillo@104	1830 as
meillo@104	1831 .Cl "comp -editor prompter" ,
meillo@20	1832 the resulting behavior is similar to
meillo@20	1833 .Pn mailx .
meillo@51	1834 Apparently,
meillo@20	1835 .Pn prompter
meillo@104	1836 hadn't been touched lately.
meillo@104	1837 Otherwise it's hardly explainable why it
meillo@20	1838 still offered the switches
meillo@84	1839 .Sw -erase
meillo@84	1840 .Ar chr
meillo@20	1841 and
meillo@84	1842 .Sw -kill
meillo@84	1843 .Ar chr
meillo@20	1844 to name the characters for command line editing.
meillo@21	1845 The times when this had been necessary are long time gone.
meillo@20	1846 Today these things work out-of-the-box, and if not, are configured
meillo@20	1847 with the standard tool
meillo@20	1848 .Pn stty .
meillo@104	1849 The switches are removed now
meillo@104	1850 .Ci 0bd9750710cdbab80cfb4036dd87af20afe1552f .
meillo@20	1851
meillo@104	1852
meillo@109	1853 .U3 "Hardcopy Terminal Support
meillo@21	1854 .P
meillo@109	1855 More of a funny anecdote is a check for being connected to a
meillo@109	1856 hardcopy terminal.
meillo@159	1857 It remained in the code until spring 2012, when I finally removed it
meillo@104	1858 .Ci b7764c4a6b71d37918a97594d866258f154017ca .
meillo@21	1859 .P
meillo@109	1860 The check only prevented a pager to be placed between the printing
meillo@104	1861 program (\c
meillo@104	1862 .Pn mhl )
meillo@104	1863 and the terminal.
meillo@109	1864 In nmh, this could have been ensured statically with the
meillo@104	1865 .Sw -nomoreproc
meillo@109	1866 at the command line, too.
meillo@121	1867 In mmh, setting the profile entry
meillo@104	1868 .Pe Pager
meillo@104	1869 or the environment variable
meillo@104	1870 .Ev PAGER
meillo@104	1871 to
meillo@109	1872 .Pn cat
meillo@159	1873 is sufficient.
meillo@104	1874
meillo@104	1875
meillo@21	1876
meillo@12	1877
meillo@58	1878 .H2 "Attachments
meillo@22	1879 .P
meillo@101	1880 The mind model of email attachments is unrelated to MIME.
meillo@101	1881 Although the MIME RFCs (2045 through 2049) define the technical
meillo@109	1882 requirements for having attachments, they do not mention the word
meillo@101	1883 ``attachment''.
meillo@101	1884 Instead of attachments, MIME talks about ``multi-part message bodies''
meillo@101	1885 [RFC\\|2045], a more general concept.
meillo@101	1886 Multi-part messages are messages
meillo@101	1887 ``in which one or more different
meillo@101	1888 sets of data are combined in a single body''
meillo@101	1889 [RFC\\|2046].
meillo@101	1890 MIME keeps its descriptions generic;
meillo@101	1891 it does not imply specific usage models.
meillo@109	1892 One usage model became prevalent: attachments.
meillo@101	1893 The idea is having a main text document with files of arbitrary kind
meillo@101	1894 attached to it.
meillo@101	1895 In MIME terms, this is a multi-part message having a text part first
meillo@110	1896 and parts of arbitrary type following.
meillo@101	1897 .P
meillo@101	1898 MH's MIME support is a direct implementation of the RFCs.
meillo@101	1899 The perception of the topic described in the RFCs is clearly visible
meillo@101	1900 in MH's implementation.
meillo@159	1901 .\" XXX rewrite ``no idea''.
meillo@159	1902 As a result,
meillo@159	1903 MH had all the MIME features but no idea of attachments.
meillo@109	1904 But users don't need all the MIME features,
meillo@109	1905 they want convenient attachment handling.
meillo@109	1906
meillo@102	1907
meillo@102	1908 .U3 "Composing MIME Messages
meillo@102	1909 .P
meillo@102	1910 In order to improve the situation on the message composing side,
meillo@102	1911 Jon Steinhart had added an attachment system to nmh in 2002.
meillo@101	1912 .Ci 7480dbc14bc90f2d872d434205c0784704213252
meillo@102	1913 In the file
meillo@102	1914 .Fn docs/README-ATTACHMENTS ,
meillo@102	1915 he described his motivation to do so as such:
meillo@101	1916 .QS
meillo@159	1917 Although nmh contains the necessary functionality for MIME message
meillo@159	1918 handing [sic!], the interface to this functionality is pretty obtuse.
meillo@101	1919 There's no way that I'm ever going to convince my partner to write
meillo@101	1920 .Pn mhbuild
meillo@101	1921 composition files!
meillo@101	1922 .QE
meillo@102	1923 .LP
meillo@102	1924 With this change, the mind model of attachments entered nmh.
meillo@102	1925 In the same document:
meillo@101	1926 .QS
meillo@101	1927 These changes simplify the task of managing attachments on draft files.
meillo@101	1928 They allow attachments to be added, listed, and deleted.
meillo@101	1929 MIME messages are automatically created when drafts with attachments
meillo@101	1930 are sent.
meillo@101	1931 .QE
meillo@102	1932 .LP
meillo@102	1933 Unfortunately, the attachment system,
meillo@102	1934 like any new facilities in nmh,
meillo@110	1935 was inactive by default.
meillo@101	1936 .P
meillo@101	1937 During my work in Argentina, I tried to improve the attachment system.
meillo@102	1938 But, because of great opposition in the nmh community,
meillo@102	1939 my patch died as a proposal on the mailing list, after long discussions.
meillo@101	1940 .[
meillo@101	1941 nmh-workers attachment proposal
meillo@101	1942 .]
meillo@110	1943 In January 2012, I extended the patch and applied it to mmh.
meillo@101	1944 .Ci 8ff284ff9167eff8f5349481529332d59ed913b1
meillo@102	1945 In mmh, the attachment system is active by default.
meillo@102	1946 Instead of command line switches, the
meillo@102	1947 .Pe Attachment-Header
meillo@102	1948 profile entry is used to specify
meillo@102	1949 the name of the attachment header field.
meillo@102	1950 It is pre-defined to
meillo@102	1951 .Hd Attach .
meillo@101	1952 .P
meillo@159	1953 To add an attachment to a draft, a header line needs to be added:
meillo@101	1954 .VS
meillo@101	1955 To: bob
meillo@101	1956 Subject: The file you wanted
meillo@101	1957 Attach: /path/to/the/file-bob-wanted
meillo@101	1958 --------
meillo@101	1959 Here it is.
meillo@101	1960 VE
meillo@101	1961 The header field can be added to the draft manually in the editor,
meillo@102	1962 or by using the `attach' command at the WhatNow prompt, or
meillo@102	1963 non-interactively with
meillo@101	1964 .Pn anno :
meillo@101	1965 .VS
meillo@102	1966 anno -append -nodate -component Attach -text /path/to/attachment
meillo@101	1967 VE
meillo@102	1968 Drafts with attachment headers are converted to MIME automatically by
meillo@102	1969 .Pn send .
meillo@102	1970 The conversion to MIME is invisible to the user.
meillo@159	1971 The draft stored in the draft folder is always in source form with
meillo@101	1972 attachment headers.
meillo@101	1973 If the MIMEification fails, for instance because the file to attach
meillo@101	1974 is not accessible, the original draft is not changed.
meillo@101	1975 .P
meillo@102	1976 The attachment system handles the forwarding of messages, too.
meillo@101	1977 If the attachment header value starts with a plus character (`+'),
meillo@101	1978 like in
meillo@101	1979 .Cl "Attach: +bob 30 42" ,
meillo@159	1980 the given messages in the specified folder will be attached.
meillo@101	1981 This allowed to simplify
meillo@101	1982 .Pn forw .
meillo@101	1983 .Ci f41f04cf4ceca7355232cf7413e59afafccc9550
meillo@101	1984 .P
meillo@101	1985 Closely related to attachments is non-ASCII text content,
meillo@101	1986 because it requires MIME too.
meillo@102	1987 In nmh, the user needed to call `mime' at the WhatNow prompt
meillo@101	1988 to have the draft converted to MIME.
meillo@102	1989 This was necessary whenever the draft contained non-ASCII characters.
meillo@101	1990 If the user did not call `mime', a broken message would be sent.
meillo@101	1991 Therefore, the
meillo@101	1992 .Pe automimeproc
meillo@101	1993 profile entry could be specified to have the `mime' command invoked
meillo@102	1994 automatically each time.
meillo@159	1995 Unfortunately, this approach conflicted with attachment system
meillo@101	1996 because the draft would already be in MIME format at the time
meillo@101	1997 when the attachment system wanted to MIMEify it.
meillo@102	1998 To use nmh's attachment system, `mime' must not be called at the
meillo@102	1999 WhatNow prompt and
meillo@101	2000 .Pe automimeproc
meillo@102	2001 must not be set in the profile.
meillo@101	2002 But then the case of non-ASCII text without attachment headers was
meillo@101	2003 not caught.
meillo@102	2004 All in all, the solution was complex and irritating.
meillo@102	2005 My patch from December 2010 would have simplified the situation.
meillo@102	2006 .P
meillo@101	2007 Mmh's current solution is even more elaborate.
meillo@101	2008 Any necessary MIMEification is done automatically.
meillo@101	2009 There is no `mime' command at the WhatNow prompt anymore.
meillo@102	2010 The draft will be converted automatically to MIME when either an
meillo@102	2011 attachment header or non-ASCII text is present.
meillo@159	2012 Furthermore, the hash character (`#') is not special any more
meillo@159	2013 at line beginnings in the draft message.
meillo@159	2014 .\" XXX REF ?
meillo@159	2015 Users need not concern themselves with the whole topic at all.
meillo@101	2016 .P
meillo@102	2017 Although the new approach does not anymore support arbitrary MIME
meillo@102	2018 compositions directly, the full power of
meillo@101	2019 .Pn mhbuild
meillo@101	2020 can still be accessed.
meillo@102	2021 Given no attachment headers are included, the user can create
meillo@101	2022 .Pn mhbuild
meillo@102	2023 composition drafts like in nmh.
meillo@101	2024 Then, at the WhatNow prompt, he needs to invoke
meillo@101	2025 .Cl "edit mhbuild
meillo@101	2026 to convert it to MIME.
meillo@110	2027 Because the resulting draft does neither contain non-ASCII characters
meillo@102	2028 nor has it attachment headers, the attachment system will not touch it.
meillo@101	2029 .P
meillo@159	2030 The approach taken in mmh is tailored towards today's most common case:
meillo@159	2031 a text part, possibly with attachments.
meillo@159	2032 This case was simplified.
meillo@102	2033
meillo@112	2034
meillo@102	2035 .U3 "MIME Type Guessing
meillo@102	2036 .P
meillo@159	2037 From the programmer's point of view, the use of
meillo@101	2038 .Pn mhbuild
meillo@159	2039 composition drafts had one notable advantage over attachment headers:
meillo@159	2040 The user provides the appropriate MIME types for files to include.
meillo@102	2041 The attachment system needs to find out the correct MIME type itself.
meillo@102	2042 This is a difficult task, yet it spares the user irritating work.
meillo@102	2043 Determining the correct MIME type of content is partly mechanical,
meillo@102	2044 partly intelligent work.
meillo@102	2045 Forcing the user to find out the correct MIME type,
meillo@102	2046 forces him to do partly mechanical work.
meillo@102	2047 Letting the computer do the work, can lead to bad choices for difficult
meillo@102	2048 content.
meillo@102	2049 For mmh, the latter option was chosen.
meillo@102	2050 .P
meillo@102	2051 Determining the MIME type by the suffix of the file name is a dumb
meillo@102	2052 approach, yet it is simple to implement and provides good results
meillo@102	2053 for the common cases.
meillo@102	2054 Mmh implements this approach in the
meillo@102	2055 .Pn print-mimetype
meillo@102	2056 script.
meillo@112	2057 .Ci 4b5944268ea0da7bb30598a27857304758ea9b44
meillo@102	2058 Using it is the default choice.
meillo@102	2059 .P
meillo@112	2060 A far better, though less portable, approach is the use of
meillo@102	2061 .Pn file .
meillo@102	2062 This standard tool tries to determine the type of files.
meillo@102	2063 Unfortunately, its capabilities and accuracy varies from system to system.
meillo@102	2064 Additionally, its output was only intended for human beings,
meillo@102	2065 but not to be used by programs.
meillo@102	2066 It varies much.
meillo@102	2067 Nevertheless, modern versions of GNU
meillo@102	2068 .Pn file ,
meillo@102	2069 which is prevalent on the popular GNU/Linux systems,
meillo@159	2070 provide MIME type output in machine-readable form.
meillo@102	2071 Although this solution is highly system-dependent,
meillo@102	2072 it solves the difficult problem well.
meillo@102	2073 On systems where GNU
meillo@102	2074 .Pn file ,
meillo@102	2075 version 5.04 or higher, is available it should be used.
meillo@102	2076 One needs to specify the following profile entry to do so:
meillo@112	2077 .Ci 3baec236a39c5c89a9bda8dbd988d643a21decc6
meillo@102	2078 .VS
meillo@102	2079 Mime-Type-Query: file -b --mime
meillo@102	2080 VE
meillo@102	2081 .LP
meillo@102	2082 Other versions of
meillo@102	2083 .Pn file
meillo@102	2084 might possibly be usable with wrapper scripts to reformat the output.
meillo@102	2085 The diversity among
meillo@102	2086 .Pn file
meillo@102	2087 implementations is great; one needs to check the local variant.
meillo@102	2088 .P
meillo@102	2089 If no MIME type can be determined, text content gets sent as
meillo@102	2090 `text/plain' and anything else under the generic fall-back type
meillo@102	2091 `application/octet-stream'.
meillo@102	2092 It is not possible in mmh to override the automatic MIME type guessing
meillo@102	2093 for a specific file.
meillo@159	2094 To do so, either the user would need to know in advance for which file
meillo@159	2095 the automatic guessing fails, or the system would require interaction.
meillo@102	2096 I consider both cases impractical.
meillo@102	2097 The existing solution should be sufficient.
meillo@102	2098 If not, the user may always fall back to
meillo@102	2099 .Pn mhbuild
meillo@102	2100 composition drafts and ignore the attachment system.
meillo@101	2101
meillo@102	2102
meillo@102	2103 .U3 "Storing Attachments
meillo@102	2104 .P
meillo@108	2105 Extracting MIME parts of a message and storing them to disk is done by
meillo@108	2106 .Pn mhstore .
meillo@108	2107 The program has two operation modes,
meillo@108	2108 .Sw -auto
meillo@108	2109 and
meillo@108	2110 .Sw -noauto .
meillo@108	2111 With the former one, each part is stored under the filename given in the
meillo@108	2112 MIME part's meta information, if available.
meillo@108	2113 This naming information is usually available for modern attachments.
meillo@108	2114 If no filename is available, this MIME part is stored as if
meillo@108	2115 .Sw -noauto
meillo@108	2116 would have been specified.
meillo@108	2117 In the
meillo@108	2118 .Sw -noauto
meillo@108	2119 mode, the parts are processed according to rules, defined by
meillo@108	2120 .Pe mhstore-store-*
meillo@108	2121 profile entries.
meillo@108	2122 These rules define generic filename templates for storing
meillo@108	2123 or commands to post-process the contents in arbitrary ways.
meillo@108	2124 If no matching rule is available the part is stored under a generic
meillo@108	2125 filename, built from message number, MIME part number, and MIME type.
meillo@108	2126 .P
meillo@108	2127 The
meillo@108	2128 .Sw -noauto
meillo@108	2129 mode had been the default in nmh because it was considered safe,
meillo@108	2130 in contrast to the
meillo@108	2131 .Sw -auto
meillo@108	2132 mode.
meillo@108	2133 In mmh,
meillo@108	2134 .Sw -auto
meillo@108	2135 is not dangerous anymore.
meillo@108	2136 Two changes were necessary:
meillo@108	2137 .BU
meillo@108	2138 Any directory path is removed from the proposed filename.
meillo@108	2139 Thus, the files are always stored in the expected directory.
meillo@108	2140 .Ci 41b6eadbcecf63c9a66aa5e582011987494abefb
meillo@108	2141 .BU
meillo@108	2142 Tar files are not extracted automatically any more.
meillo@108	2143 Thus, the rest of the file system will not be touched.
meillo@108	2144 .Ci 94c80042eae3383c812d9552089953f9846b1bb6
meillo@108	2145 .LP
meillo@108	2146 Now, the outcome of mmh's
meillo@108	2147 .Cl "mhstore -auto
meillo@110	2148 can be foreseen from the output of
meillo@108	2149 .Cl "mhlist -verbose" .
meillo@108	2150 .P
meillo@108	2151 The
meillo@108	2152 .Sw -noauto
meillo@108	2153 mode is seen to be more powerful but less convenient.
meillo@108	2154 On the other hand,
meillo@108	2155 .Sw -auto
meillo@108	2156 is safe now and
meillo@108	2157 storing attachments under their original name is intuitive.
meillo@108	2158 Hence,
meillo@108	2159 .Sw -auto
meillo@108	2160 serves better as the default option.
meillo@108	2161 .Ci 3410b680416c49a7617491af38bc1929855a331d
meillo@108	2162 .P
meillo@108	2163 Files are stored into the directory given by the
meillo@108	2164 .Pe Nmh-Storage
meillo@108	2165 profile entry, if set, or
meillo@108	2166 into the current working directory, otherwise.
meillo@108	2167 Storing to different directories is only possible with
meillo@108	2168 .Pe mhstore-store-*
meillo@108	2169 profile entries.
meillo@108	2170 .P
meillo@108	2171 Still, in both modes, existing files get overwritten silently.
meillo@108	2172 This can be considered a bug.
meillo@108	2173 Yet, each other behavior has its draw-backs, too.
meillo@108	2174 Refusing to replace files requires adding a
meillo@108	2175 .Sw -force
meillo@108	2176 option.
meillo@108	2177 Users will likely need to invoke
meillo@108	2178 .Pn mhstore
meillo@108	2179 a second time with
meillo@159	2180 .Sw -force .
meillo@159	2181 Eventually, only the user can decide in the specific case.
meillo@108	2182 This requires interaction, which I like to avoid if possible.
meillo@108	2183 Appending a unique suffix to the filename is another bad option.
meillo@108	2184 For now, the behavior remains as it is.
meillo@108	2185 .P
meillo@108	2186 In mmh, only MIME parts of type message are special in
meillo@108	2187 .Pn mhstore 's
meillo@108	2188 .Sw -auto
meillo@108	2189 mode.
meillo@108	2190 Instead of storing message/rfc822 parts as files to disk,
meillo@108	2191 they are stored as messages into the current mail folder.
meillo@159	2192 The same applies to message/partial, although the parts are
meillo@159	2193 automatically reassembled beforehand.
meillo@159	2194 MIME parts of type message/external-body are not automatically retrieved
meillo@159	2195 anymore.
meillo@159	2196 Instead, information on how to retrieve them is output.
meillo@108	2197 Not supporting this rare case saved nearly one thousand lines of code.
meillo@108	2198 .Ci 55e1d8c654ee0f7c45b9361ce34617983b454c32
meillo@108	2199 .\" XXX mention somewhere else too: (The profile entry `nmh-access-ftp'
meillo@108	2200 .\" and sbr/ruserpass.c for reading ~/.netrc are gone now.)
meillo@159	2201 `application/octet-stream; type=tar' is not special anymore.
meillo@108	2202 Automatically extracting such MIME parts had been the dangerous part
meillo@108	2203 of the
meillo@108	2204 .Sw -auto
meillo@108	2205 mode.
meillo@108	2206 .Ci 94c80042eae3383c812d9552089953f9846b1bb6
meillo@108	2207
meillo@102	2208
meillo@102	2209
meillo@102	2210 .U3 "Showing MIME Messages
meillo@102	2211 .P
meillo@114	2212 The program
meillo@114	2213 .Pn mhshow
meillo@114	2214 had been written to display MIME messages.
meillo@114	2215 It implemented the conceptional view of the MIME RFCs.
meillo@114	2216 Nmh's
meillo@114	2217 .Pn mhshow
meillo@114	2218 handled each MIME part independently, presenting them separately
meillo@114	2219 to the user.
meillo@114	2220 This does not match today's understanding of email attachments,
meillo@114	2221 where displaying a message is seen to be a single, integrated operation.
meillo@114	2222 Today, email messages are expected to consist of a main text part
meillo@114	2223 plus possibly attachments.
meillo@114	2224 They are not any more seen to be arbitrary MIME hierarchies with
meillo@114	2225 information on how to display the individual parts.
meillo@114	2226 I adjusted
meillo@114	2227 .Pn mhshow 's
meillo@114	2228 behavior to the modern view on the topic.
meillo@114	2229 .P
meillo@159	2230 One should note that this section completely ignores the original
meillo@114	2231 .Pn show
meillo@114	2232 program, because it was not capable to display MIME messages
meillo@114	2233 and is no longer part of mmh.
meillo@114	2234 Although
meillo@114	2235 .Pn mhshow
meillo@114	2236 was renamed to
meillo@114	2237 .Pn show
meillo@114	2238 in mmh, this section uses the name
meillo@114	2239 .Pn mhshow ,
meillo@114	2240 in order to avoid confusion.
meillo@159	2241 .\" XXX ref to other section
meillo@114	2242 .P
meillo@114	2243 In mmh, the basic idea is that
meillo@114	2244 .Pn mhshow
meillo@114	2245 should display a message in one single pager session.
meillo@114	2246 Therefore,
meillo@114	2247 .Pn mhshow
meillo@114	2248 invokes a pager session for all its output,
meillo@114	2249 whenever it prints to a terminal.
meillo@114	2250 .Ci a4197ea6ffc5c1550e8b52d5a654bcaaaee04a4e
meillo@114	2251 In consequence,
meillo@114	2252 .Pn mhl
meillo@114	2253 does no more invoke a pager.
meillo@114	2254 .Ci 0e46503be3c855bddaeae3843e1b659279c35d70
meillo@114	2255 With
meillo@114	2256 .Pn mhshow
meillo@114	2257 replacing the original
meillo@114	2258 .Pn show ,
meillo@114	2259 output from
meillo@114	2260 .Pn mhl
meillo@114	2261 does not go to the terminal directly, but through
meillo@114	2262 .Pn mhshow .
meillo@114	2263 Hence,
meillo@114	2264 .Pn mhl
meillo@114	2265 does not need to invoke a pager.
meillo@114	2266 The one and only job of
meillo@114	2267 .Pn mhl
meillo@114	2268 is to format messages or parts of them.
meillo@114	2269 The only place in mmh, where a pager is invoked is
meillo@114	2270 .Pn mhshow .
meillo@114	2271 .P
meillo@114	2272 .Pe mhshow-show-*
meillo@114	2273 profile entries can be used to display MIME parts in a specific way.
meillo@114	2274 For instance, PDF and Postscript files could be converted to plain text
meillo@114	2275 to display them in the terminal.
meillo@114	2276 In mmh, the displaying of MIME parts will always be done serially.
meillo@114	2277 The request to display the MIME type `multipart/parallel' in parallel
meillo@114	2278 is ignored.
meillo@114	2279 It is simply treated as `multipart/mixed'.
meillo@114	2280 .Ci d0581ba306a7299113a346f9b4c46ce97bc4cef6
meillo@114	2281 This could already be requested with the, now removed,
meillo@114	2282 .Sw -serialonly
meillo@114	2283 switch of
meillo@114	2284 .Pn mhshow .
meillo@114	2285 As MIME parts are always processed exclusively , i.e. serially,
meillo@114	2286 the `%e' escape in
meillo@114	2287 .Pe mhshow-show-*
meillo@114	2288 profile entries became useless and was thus removed.
meillo@114	2289 .Ci a20d405db09b7ccca74d3e8c57550883da49e1ae
meillo@114	2290 .P
meillo@114	2291 In the intended setup, only text content would be displayed.
meillo@114	2292 Non-text content would be converted to text by appropriate
meillo@114	2293 .Pe mhshow-show-*
meillo@114	2294 profile entries before, if possible and wanted.
meillo@114	2295 All output would be displayed in a single pager session.
meillo@114	2296 Other kinds of attachments are ignored.
meillo@114	2297 With
meillo@114	2298 .Pe mhshow-show-*
meillo@114	2299 profile entries for them, they can be displayed serially along
meillo@114	2300 the message.
meillo@114	2301 For parallel display, the attachments need to be stored to disk first.
meillo@114	2302 .P
meillo@114	2303 To display text content in foreign charsets, they need to be converted
meillo@114	2304 to the native charset.
meillo@114	2305 Therefore,
meillo@114	2306 .Pe mhshow-charset-*
meillo@114	2307 profile entries used to be needed.
meillo@121	2308 In mmh, the conversion is done automatically by piping the text through
meillo@114	2309 the
meillo@114	2310 .Pn iconv
meillo@114	2311 command, if necessary.
meillo@114	2312 .Ci 2433122c20baccb10b70b49c04c6b0497b5b3b60
meillo@114	2313 Custom
meillo@114	2314 .Pe mhshow-show-*
meillo@114	2315 rules for textual content might need a
meillo@114	2316 .Cl "iconv -f %c %f \|
meillo@114	2317 prefix to have the text converted to the native charset.
meillo@114	2318 .P
meillo@121	2319 Although the conversion of foreign charsets to the native one
meillo@114	2320 has improved, it is not consistent enough.
meillo@114	2321 Further work needs to be done and
meillo@114	2322 the basic concepts in this field need to be re-thought.
meillo@114	2323 Though, the default setup of mmh displays message in foreign charsets
meillo@114	2324 correctly without the need to configure anything.
meillo@114	2325
meillo@114	2326
meillo@114	2327 .ig
meillo@114	2328
meillo@114	2329 .P
meillo@114	2330 mhshow/mhstore: Removed support for retrieving message/external-body parts.
meillo@114	2331 These tools won't download the contents automatically anymore. Instead,
meillo@114	2332 they print the information needed to get the contents. If someone should
meillo@114	2333 really receive one of those rare message/external-body messages, he can
meillo@114	2334 do the job manually. We save nearly a thousand lines of code. That's worth
meillo@114	2335 it!
meillo@114	2336 (The profile entry `nmh-access-ftp' and sbr/ruserpass.c for reading
meillo@114	2337 ~/.netrc are gone now.)
meillo@114	2338 .Ci 55e1d8c654ee0f7c45b9361ce34617983b454c32
meillo@114	2339
meillo@114	2340 ..
meillo@102	2341
meillo@58	2342
meillo@58	2343
meillo@166	2344 .H2 "Signing and Encrypting
meillo@22	2345 .P
meillo@166	2346 Nmh offers no direct support for digital signatures and message encryption.
meillo@157	2347 This functionality needed to be added through third-party software.
meillo@166	2348 In mmh, the functionality should be included because it
meillo@166	2349 is a part of modern email and likely wanted by users of mmh.
meillo@157	2350 A fresh mmh installation should support signing and encrypting
meillo@157	2351 out-of-the-box.
meillo@157	2352 Therefore, Neil Rickert's
meillo@157	2353 .Pn mhsign
meillo@157	2354 and
meillo@157	2355 .Pn mhpgp
meillo@157	2356 scripts
meillo@157	2357 .[
meillo@157	2358 neil rickert mhsign mhpgp
meillo@157	2359 .]
meillo@157	2360 were included into mmh.
meillo@157	2361 The scripts fit well into the mmh, because they are lightweight and
meillo@157	2362 of style similar to the existing tools.
meillo@157	2363 Additionally, no licensing difficulties appeared,
meillo@157	2364 as they are part of the public domain.
meillo@112	2365 .P
meillo@157	2366 The scripts were written for nmh, hence I needed to adjust them according
meillo@157	2367 to the differences of mmh.
meillo@157	2368 For instance, I removed the use of the backup prefix and dropped support
meillo@157	2369 for old PGP features.
meillo@157	2370 .P
meillo@157	2371 .Pn mhsign
meillo@157	2372 handles the signing and encrypting part.
meillo@157	2373 It comprises about 250 lines of shell code and interfaces between
meillo@157	2374 .Pn gnupg
meillo@157	2375 and
meillo@157	2376 the MH system.
meillo@157	2377 It was meant to be invoked at the WhatNow prompt, but in mmh,
meillo@157	2378 .Pn send
meillo@157	2379 does the job automatically.
meillo@157	2380 Special header fields were introduced to request the action.
meillo@157	2381 If a draft contains the
meillo@157	2382 .Hd Sign
meillo@157	2383 header field,
meillo@157	2384 .Pn send
meillo@157	2385 will sign it.
meillo@157	2386 The key to be used is either chosen automatically or specified by the
meillo@157	2387 .Pe Pgpkey
meillo@157	2388 profile entry.
meillo@157	2389 .Pn send
meillo@157	2390 always signes messages using the PGP/MIME standard, \" REF XXX
meillo@157	2391 but by manually invoking
meillo@157	2392 .Pn mhsign ,
meillo@157	2393 old-style non-MIME signatures can be created as well.
meillo@157	2394 To sign an outgoing message, the draft needs to contain a
meillo@157	2395 .Hd Enc
meillo@157	2396 header field.
meillo@157	2397 Public keys of all recipients are taken from the gnupg keyring or
meillo@157	2398 from an overrides files, called
meillo@157	2399 .Fn pgpkeys .
meillo@157	2400 Unless public keys are found for all recipients,
meillo@157	2401 .Pn send
meillo@157	2402 will refuse to encrypt and send it.
meillo@157	2403 Currently, messages with hidden (BCC) recipients can not be encrypted.
meillo@157	2404 This corner-case requires a more complex solution.
meillo@157	2405 Covering it is left to do.
meillo@157	2406 .P
meillo@157	2407 The integrated message signing and encrypting support is one of the
meillo@157	2408 most recent features in mmh.
meillo@157	2409 Feedback from users and the experience I will gather myself
meillo@157	2410 will direct the further development of the facility.
meillo@157	2411 It is worthwhile to consider adding
meillo@157	2412 .Sw -[no]sign
meillo@157	2413 and
meillo@157	2414 .Sw -[no]enc
meillo@157	2415 switches to
meillo@157	2416 .Pn send ,
meillo@157	2417 to override the corresponding header fields.
meillo@157	2418 The profile entry:
meillo@157	2419 .VS
meillo@157	2420 send: -sign
meillo@157	2421 VE
meillo@157	2422 .LP
meillo@157	2423 would then activate signing of all outgoing messages.
meillo@157	2424 With the present approach, the line
meillo@157	2425 .VS
meillo@157	2426 Send:
meillo@157	2427 VE
meillo@157	2428 .LP
meillo@157	2429 needs to be added to all message forms to achieve the same result.
meillo@157	2430 Yet, the integration of
meillo@157	2431 .Pn mhsign
meillo@157	2432 into mmh is too recent to have enough experience to decide this
meillo@157	2433 question now.
meillo@157	2434 .P
meillo@157	2435 .Pn mhpgp
meillo@157	2436 is the contrary part to
meillo@157	2437 .Pn mhsign .
meillo@157	2438 It verifies signatures and decrypts messages.
meillo@157	2439 .P
meillo@157	2440 FIXME: Add it to mmh first, then write about it here.
meillo@157	2441 .P
meillo@157	2442 The integration of
meillo@157	2443 .Pn mhpgp
meillo@157	2444 into
meillo@157	2445 .Pn show ,
meillo@157	2446 to automatically verify signatures and decrypt messages as needed,
meillo@157	2447 is a task left open.
meillo@157	2448 .Pn show 's
meillo@157	2449 current structure does not allow such an integration on basis of
meillo@157	2450 the existing code.
meillo@157	2451 Extensive programming work is required. ... FIXME
meillo@157	2452
meillo@157	2453
meillo@58	2454
meillo@58	2455
meillo@102	2456
meillo@133	2457 .H2 "Draft and Trash Folder
meillo@131	2458 .P
meillo@58	2459
meillo@131	2460 .U3 "Draft Folder
meillo@154	2461 .Id draft-folder
meillo@131	2462 .P
meillo@131	2463 In the beginning, MH had the concept of a draft message.
meillo@131	2464 This is the file
meillo@131	2465 .Fn draft
meillo@131	2466 in the MH directory, which is treated special.
meillo@131	2467 On composing a message, this draft file was used.
meillo@131	2468 As the draft file was one particular file, only one draft could be
meillo@131	2469 managed at any time.
meillo@131	2470 When starting to compose another message before the former one was sent,
meillo@131	2471 the user had to decide among:
meillo@131	2472 .BU
meillo@131	2473 Use the old draft to finish and send it before starting with a new one.
meillo@131	2474 .BU
meillo@131	2475 Discard the old draft, replacing it with the new one.
meillo@131	2476 .BU
meillo@131	2477 Preserve the old draft by refiling it to a folder.
meillo@131	2478 .P
meillo@131	2479 This was, it was only possible to work in alternation on multiple drafts.
meillo@131	2480 Therefore, the current draft needed to be refiled to a folder and
meillo@131	2481 another one re-using for editing.
meillo@131	2482 Working on multiple drafts at the same time was impossible.
meillo@131	2483 The usual approach of switching to a different MH context did not
meillo@131	2484 change anything.
meillo@131	2485 .P
meillo@131	2486 The draft folder facility exists to
meillo@131	2487 allow true parallel editing of drafts, in a straight forward way.
meillo@131	2488 It was introduced by Marshall T. Rose, already in 1984.
meillo@131	2489 Similar to other new features, the draft folder was inactive by default.
meillo@131	2490 Even in nmh, the highly useful draft folder was not available
meillo@131	2491 out-of-the-box.
meillo@131	2492 At least, Richard Coleman added the man page
meillo@131	2493 .Mp mh-draft (5)
meillo@131	2494 to better document the feature.
meillo@131	2495 .P
meillo@131	2496 Not using the draft folder facility has the single advantage of having
meillo@131	2497 the draft file at a static location.
meillo@131	2498 This is simple in simple cases but the concept does not scale for more
meillo@131	2499 complex cases.
meillo@131	2500 The concept of the draft message is too limited for the problem.
meillo@131	2501 Therefore the draft folder was introduced.
meillo@131	2502 It is the more powerful and more natural concept.
meillo@131	2503 The draft folder is a folder like any other folder in MH.
meillo@131	2504 Its messages can be listed like any other messages.
meillo@131	2505 A draft message is no longer a special case.
meillo@131	2506 Tools do not need special switches to work on the draft message.
meillo@131	2507 Hence corner-cases were removed.
meillo@131	2508 .P
meillo@131	2509 The trivial part of the work was activating the draft folder with a
meillo@131	2510 default name.
meillo@131	2511 I chose the name
meillo@131	2512 .Fn +drafts
meillo@131	2513 for obvious reasons.
meillo@131	2514 In consequence, the command line switches
meillo@131	2515 .Sw -draftfolder
meillo@131	2516 and
meillo@131	2517 .Sw -draftmessage
meillo@131	2518 could be removed.
meillo@131	2519 More difficult but also more improving was updating the tools to the
meillo@131	2520 new concept.
meillo@131	2521 For nearly three decades, the tools needed to support two draft handling
meillo@131	2522 approaches.
meillo@131	2523 By fully switching to the draft folder, the tools could be simplified
meillo@131	2524 by dropping the awkward draft message handling code.
meillo@131	2525 .Sw -draft
meillo@131	2526 switches were removed because operating on a draft message is no longer
meillo@131	2527 special.
meillo@131	2528 It became indistinguishable to operating on any other message.
meillo@131	2529 There is no more need to query the user for draft handling.
meillo@131	2530 It is always possible to add another new draft.
meillo@131	2531 Refiling drafts is without difference to refiling other messages.
meillo@131	2532 All these special cases are gone.
meillo@131	2533 Yet, one draft-related switch remained.
meillo@131	2534 .Pn comp
meillo@131	2535 still has
meillo@131	2536 .Sw -[no]use
meillo@131	2537 for switching between two modes:
meillo@131	2538 .BU
meillo@131	2539 .Sw -use :
meillo@131	2540 Modify an existing draft.
meillo@131	2541 .BU
meillo@131	2542 .Sw -nouse :
meillo@131	2543 Compose a new draft, possibly taking some existing message as a form.
meillo@131	2544 .P
meillo@131	2545 In either case, the behavior of
meillo@131	2546 .Pn comp
meillo@131	2547 is deterministic.
meillo@131	2548 .P
meillo@131	2549 .Pn send
meillo@131	2550 now operates on the current message in the draft folder by default.
meillo@131	2551 As message and folder can both be overridden by specifying them on
meillo@131	2552 the command line, it is possible to send any message in the mail storage
meillo@131	2553 by simply specifying its number and folder.
meillo@131	2554 In contrast to the other tools,
meillo@131	2555 .Pn send
meillo@131	2556 takes the draft folder as its default folder.
meillo@131	2557 .P
meillo@131	2558 Dropping the draft message concept in favor for the draft folder concept,
meillo@131	2559 removed special cases with regular cases.
meillo@131	2560 This simplified the source code of the tools, as well as the concepts.
meillo@131	2561 In mmh, draft management does not break with the MH concepts
meillo@131	2562 but applies them.
meillo@133	2563 .Cl "scan +drafts" ,
meillo@133	2564 for instance, is a truly natural request.
meillo@131	2565 Most of the work was already done by Rose in the eighties.
meillo@133	2566 The original improvement of mmh is dropping the old draft message approach
meillo@133	2567 and thus simplifying the tools, the documentation and the system as a whole.
meillo@131	2568 Although my part in the draft handling improvement was small,
meillo@133	2569 it was an important one.
meillo@131	2570
meillo@131	2571
meillo@131	2572 .U3 "Trash Folder
meillo@154	2573 .Id trash-folder
meillo@131	2574 .P
meillo@131	2575 Similar to the situation for drafts is the situation for removed messages.
meillo@131	2576 Historically, a message was ``deleted'' by prepending a specific
meillo@164	2577 \fIbackup prefix\fP, usually the comma character, to the file name.
meillo@164	2578 The specific file would then be ignored by MH because only files with
meillo@164	2579 names consisting of digits only are treated as messages.
meillo@131	2580 Although files remained in the file system,
meillo@131	2581 the messages were no more visible in MH.
meillo@131	2582 To truly delete them, a maintenance job is needed.
meillo@131	2583 Usually a cron job is installed to delete them after a grace time.
meillo@131	2584 For instance:
meillo@131	2585 .VS
meillo@131	2586 find $HOME/Mail -type f -name ',*' -ctime +7 -delete
meillo@131	2587 VE
meillo@131	2588 In such a setup, the original message can be restored
meillo@131	2589 within the grace time interval by stripping the
meillo@164	2590 backup prefix from the file name.
meillo@164	2591 But the user can not rely on this statement.
meillo@131	2592 If the last message of a folder with six messages (1-6) is removed,
meillo@131	2593 message
meillo@131	2594 .Fn 6 ,
meillo@131	2595 becomes file
meillo@131	2596 .Fn ,6 .
meillo@131	2597 If then a new message enters the same folder, it will be given
meillo@164	2598 the number one higher than the highest message.
meillo@131	2599 In this case the message is named
meillo@131	2600 .Fn 6
meillo@131	2601 then.
meillo@131	2602 If this message is removed as well,
meillo@131	2603 then the backup of the former message gets overwritten.
meillo@131	2604 Hence, the ability to restore removed messages does not only depend on
meillo@131	2605 the ``sweeping cron job'' but also on the removing of further messages.
meillo@131	2606 It is undesirable to have such obscure and complex mechanisms.
meillo@131	2607 The user should be given a small set of clear assertions.
meillo@131	2608 ``Removed files are restorable within a seven-day grace time.''
meillo@131	2609 is such a clear assertion.
meillo@131	2610 With the addition ``... unless a message with the same name in the
meillo@131	2611 same folder is removed before.'' the statement becomes complex.
meillo@131	2612 A user will hardly be able to keep track of any removal to know
meillo@131	2613 if the assertion still holds true for a specific file.
meillo@164	2614 In practice, the real mechanism is unclear to the user.
meillo@131	2615 The consequences of further removals are not obvious.
meillo@131	2616 .P
meillo@131	2617 Further more, the backup files are scattered within the whole mail storage.
meillo@131	2618 This complicates managing them.
meillo@164	2619 It is possible with the help of
meillo@131	2620 .Pn find ,
meillo@131	2621 but everything would be more convenient
meillo@131	2622 if the deleted messages would be collected in one place.
meillo@131	2623 .P
meillo@131	2624 The profile entry
meillo@131	2625 .Pe rmmproc
meillo@131	2626 (previously named
meillo@131	2627 .Pe Delete-Prog )
meillo@131	2628 was introduced very early to improve the situation.
meillo@164	2629 It could be set to any command, which would be executed to remove
meillo@131	2630 the specified messages.
meillo@131	2631 This would override the default action, described above.
meillo@131	2632 Refiling the to-be-removed files to a garbage folder is the usual example.
meillo@131	2633 Nmh's man page
meillo@131	2634 .Mp rmm (1)
meillo@131	2635 proposes to set the
meillo@131	2636 .Pe rmmproc
meillo@131	2637 to
meillo@131	2638 .Cl "refile +d
meillo@131	2639 to move messages to the garbage folder,
meillo@131	2640 .Fn +d ,
meillo@131	2641 instead of renaming them with the backup prefix.
meillo@131	2642 The man page proposes additionally the expunge command
meillo@131	2643 .Cl "rm `mhpath +d all`
meillo@131	2644 to empty the garbage folder.
meillo@131	2645 .P
meillo@131	2646 Removing messages in such a way has advantages.
meillo@131	2647 The mail storage is prevented from being cluttered with removed messages
meillo@131	2648 because they are all collected in one place.
meillo@131	2649 Existing and removed messages are thus separated more strictly.
meillo@131	2650 No backup files are silently overwritten.
meillo@164	2651 But most important is the ability to keep removed messages in the MH domain.
meillo@131	2652 Messages in the trash folder can be listed like those in any other folder.
meillo@131	2653 Deleted messages can be displayed like any other messages.
meillo@131	2654 Restoring a deleted messages can be done with
meillo@131	2655 .Pn refile .
meillo@131	2656 All operations on deleted files are still covered by the MH tools.
meillo@131	2657 The trash folder is just like any other folder in the mail storage.
meillo@131	2658 .P
meillo@131	2659 Similar to the draft folder case, I dropped the old backup prefix approach
meillo@131	2660 in favor for replacing it by the better suiting trash folder system.
meillo@131	2661 Hence,
meillo@131	2662 .Pn rmm
meillo@131	2663 calls
meillo@131	2664 .Pn refile
meillo@131	2665 to move the to-be-removed message to the trash folder,
meillo@131	2666 .Fn +trash
meillo@131	2667 by default.
meillo@164	2668 To sweep it clean, the user can use
meillo@131	2669 .Cl "rmm -unlink +trash a" ,
meillo@131	2670 where the
meillo@131	2671 .Sw -unlink
meillo@131	2672 switch causes the files to be unlinked.
meillo@131	2673 .P
meillo@131	2674 Dropping the legacy approach and completely converting to the new approach
meillo@131	2675 simplified the code base.
meillo@131	2676 The relationship between
meillo@131	2677 .Pn rmm
meillo@131	2678 and
meillo@131	2679 .Pn refile
meillo@131	2680 was inverted.
meillo@131	2681 In mmh,
meillo@131	2682 .Pn rmm
meillo@131	2683 invokes
meillo@131	2684 .Pn refile ,
meillo@131	2685 which used to be the other way round.
meillo@131	2686 Yet, the relationship is simpler now.
meillo@164	2687 Loops, like described in nmh's man page for
meillo@131	2688 .Mp refile (1),
meillo@164	2689 can no longer occur:
meillo@131	2690 .QS
meillo@131	2691 Since
meillo@131	2692 .Pn refile
meillo@131	2693 uses your
meillo@131	2694 .Pe rmmproc
meillo@131	2695 to delete the message, the
meillo@131	2696 .Pe rmmproc
meillo@131	2697 must NOT call
meillo@131	2698 .Pn refile
meillo@131	2699 without specifying
meillo@131	2700 .Sw -normmproc
meillo@131	2701 or you will create an infinite loop.
meillo@131	2702 .QE
meillo@131	2703 .LP
meillo@131	2704 .Pn rmm
meillo@131	2705 either unlinks a message with
meillo@131	2706 .Fu unlink()
meillo@131	2707 or invokes
meillo@131	2708 .Pn refile
meillo@131	2709 to move it to the trash folder.
meillo@131	2710 .Pn refile
meillo@131	2711 does not invoke any tools.
meillo@131	2712 .P
meillo@136	2713 By generalizing the message removal in the way that it became covered
meillo@136	2714 by the MH concepts made the whole system more powerful.
meillo@131	2715
meillo@131	2716
meillo@131	2717
meillo@131	2718
meillo@131	2719
meillo@133	2720 .H2 "Modern Defaults
meillo@133	2721 .P
meillo@133	2722 Nmh has a bunch of convenience-improving features inactive by default,
meillo@133	2723 although one can expect every new user wanting to have them active.
meillo@133	2724 The reason they are inactive by default is the wish to stay compatible
meillo@133	2725 with old versions.
meillo@136	2726 But what is the definition for old versions?
meillo@136	2727 Still, the highly useful draft folder facility has not been activated
meillo@136	2728 by default although it was introduced over twenty-five years ago.
meillo@133	2729 .[
meillo@133	2730 rose romine real work
meillo@133	2731 .]
meillo@136	2732 The community seems not to care.
meillo@136	2733 This is one of several examples that require new users to first build up
meillo@136	2734 a profile before they can access the modern features of nmh.
meillo@136	2735 Without an extensive profile, the setup is hardly usable
meillo@133	2736 for modern emailing.
meillo@133	2737 The point is not the customization of the setup,
meillo@136	2738 but the need to activate generally useful facilities.
meillo@133	2739 .P
meillo@133	2740 Yet, the real problem lies less in enabling the features, as this is
meillo@133	2741 straight forward as soon as one knows what he wants.
meillo@133	2742 The real problem is that new users need deep insights into the project
meillo@133	2743 before they find out what they are missing and that nmh actually
meillo@133	2744 provides it already, it just was not activated.
meillo@133	2745 To give an example, I needed one year of using nmh
meillo@133	2746 before I became aware of the existence of the attachment system.
meillo@133	2747 One could argue that this fact disqualifies my reading of the
meillo@133	2748 documentation.
meillo@133	2749 If I would have installed nmh from source back then, I could agree.
meillo@133	2750 Yet, I had used a prepackaged version and had expected that it would
meillo@133	2751 just work.
meillo@133	2752 Nevertheless, I had been convinced by the concepts of MH already
meillo@133	2753 and I am a software developer,
meillo@133	2754 still I required a lot of time to discover the cool features.
meillo@133	2755 How can we expect users to be even more advanced than me,
meillo@133	2756 just to allow them use MH in a convenient and modern way?
meillo@133	2757 Unless they are strongly convinced of the concepts, they will fail.
meillo@133	2758 I have seen friends of me giving up disappointed
meillo@133	2759 before they truly used the system,
meillo@133	2760 although they had been motivated in the beginning.
meillo@133	2761 They suffer hard enough to get used to the toolchest approach,
meillo@133	2762 we should spare them further inconveniences.
meillo@133	2763 .P
meillo@136	2764 Maintaining compatibility for its own sake is bad,
meillo@136	2765 because the code base collects more and more compatibility code.
meillo@136	2766 Sticking to the compatiblity code means remaining limited;
meillo@136	2767 not using it renders it unnecessary.
meillo@136	2768 Keeping unused alternative in the code is a bad choice as they likely
meillo@136	2769 gather bugs, by not being well tested.
meillo@136	2770 Also, the increased code size and the greater number of conditions
meillo@136	2771 increase the maintenance costs.
meillo@133	2772 If any MH implementation would be the back-end of widespread
meillo@133	2773 email clients with large user bases, compatibility would be more
meillo@133	2774 important.
meillo@133	2775 Yet, it appears as if this is not the case.
meillo@133	2776 Hence, compatibility is hardly important for technical reasons.
meillo@133	2777 Its importance originates rather from personal reasons.
meillo@133	2778 Nmh's user base is small and old.
meillo@133	2779 Changing the interfaces would cause inconvenience to long-term users of MH.
meillo@133	2780 It would force them to change their many years old MH configurations.
meillo@133	2781 I do understand this aspect, but it keeps new users from using MH.
meillo@133	2782 By sticking to the old users, new users are kept away.
meillo@133	2783 Yet, the future lies in new users.
meillo@133	2784 Hence, mmh invites new users by providing a convenient and modern setup,
meillo@133	2785 readily usable out-of-the-box.
meillo@133	2786 .P
meillo@136	2787 In mmh, all modern features are active by default and many previous
meillo@136	2788 approaches are removed or only accessible in manual ways.
meillo@136	2789 New default features include:
meillo@133	2790 .BU
meillo@133	2791 The attachment system (\c
meillo@133	2792 .Hd Attach ).
meillo@133	2793 .Ci 8ff284ff9167eff8f5349481529332d59ed913b1
meillo@133	2794 .BU
meillo@133	2795 The draft folder facility (\c
meillo@133	2796 .Fn +drafts ).
meillo@133	2797 .Ci 337338b404931f06f0db2119c9e145e8ca5a9860
meillo@133	2798 .BU
meillo@133	2799 The unseen sequence (`u')
meillo@133	2800 .Ci c2360569e1d8d3678e294eb7c1354cb8bf7501c1
meillo@133	2801 and the sequence negation prefix (`!').
meillo@133	2802 .Ci db74c2bd004b2dc9bf8086a6d8bf773ac051f3cc
meillo@133	2803 .BU
meillo@133	2804 Quoting the original message in the reply.
meillo@133	2805 .Ci 67411b1f95d6ec987b4c732459e1ba8a8ac192c6
meillo@133	2806 .BU
meillo@133	2807 Forwarding messages using MIME.
meillo@133	2808 .Ci 6e271608b7b9c23771523f88d23a4d3593010cf1
meillo@136	2809 .P
meillo@136	2810 In consequence, a setup with a profile that defines only the path to the
meillo@136	2811 mail storage, is already convenient to use.
meillo@136	2812 Again, Paul Vixie's ``edginess'' appeal supports the direction I took:
meillo@136	2813 ``the `main branch' should just be modern''.
meillo@136	2814 .[
meillo@136	2815 paul vixie edginess nmh-workers
meillo@136	2816 .]
meillo@131	2817
meillo@133	2818
meillo@133	2819
meillo@133	2820
meillo@133	2821
meillo@133	2822 .\" --------------------------------------------------------------
meillo@131	2823 .H1 "Styling
meillo@22	2824 .P
meillo@118	2825 Kernighan and Pike have emphasized the importance of style in the
meillo@118	2826 preface of their book:
meillo@118	2827 .[ [
meillo@118	2828 kernighan pike practice of programming
meillo@118	2829 .], p. x]
meillo@118	2830 .QS
meillo@118	2831 Chapter 1 discusses programming style.
meillo@118	2832 Good style is so important to good programming that we have chose
meillo@118	2833 to cover it first.
meillo@118	2834 .QE
meillo@118	2835 This section covers changes in mmh that were motivated by the desire
meillo@118	2836 to improve on style.
meillo@118	2837 Many of them follow the rules given in the quoted book.
meillo@118	2838 .[
meillo@118	2839 kernighan pike practice of programming
meillo@118	2840 .]
meillo@118	2841
meillo@118	2842
meillo@127	2843
meillo@127	2844
meillo@127	2845 .H2 "Code Style
meillo@154	2846 .Id code-style
meillo@118	2847 .P
meillo@118	2848 .U3 "Indentation Style
meillo@118	2849 .P
meillo@118	2850 Indentation styles are the holy cow of programmers.
meillo@118	2851 Again Kernighan and Pike:
meillo@118	2852 .[ [
meillo@118	2853 kernighan pike practice of programming
meillo@118	2854 .], p. 10]
meillo@118	2855 .QS
meillo@118	2856 Programmers have always argued about the layout of programs,
meillo@118	2857 but the specific style is much less important than its consistent
meillo@118	2858 application.
meillo@121	2859 Pick one style, preferably ours, use it consistently, and don't waste
meillo@118	2860 time arguing.
meillo@118	2861 .QE
meillo@118	2862 .P
meillo@118	2863 I agree that the constant application is most important,
meillo@118	2864 but I believe that some styles have advantages over others.
meillo@118	2865 For instance the indentation with tab characters only.
meillo@118	2866 Tab characters directly map to the nesting level \(en
meillo@118	2867 one tab, one level.
meillo@118	2868 Tab characters are flexible because developers can adjust them to
meillo@118	2869 whatever width they like to have.
meillo@118	2870 There is no more need to run
meillo@118	2871 .Pn unexpand
meillo@118	2872 or
meillo@118	2873 .Pn entab
meillo@118	2874 programs to ensure the correct mixture of leading tabs and spaces.
meillo@118	2875 The simple rules are: (1) Leading whitespace must consist of tabs only.
meillo@118	2876 (2) Any other whitespace should consist of spaces.
meillo@121	2877 These two rules ensure the integrity of the visual appearance.
meillo@121	2878 Although reformatting existing code should be avoided, I did it.
meillo@136	2879 I did not waste time arguing; I just reformated the code.
meillo@118	2880 .Ci a485ed478abbd599d8c9aab48934e7a26733ecb1
meillo@118	2881
meillo@118	2882 .U3 "Comments
meillo@118	2883 .P
meillo@118	2884 Section 1.6 of
meillo@118	2885 .[ [
meillo@118	2886 kernighan pike practice of programming
meillo@118	2887 .], p. 23]
meillo@118	2888 demands: ``Don't belabor the obvious.''
meillo@122	2889 Hence, I simply removed all the comments in the following code excerpt:
meillo@118	2890 .VS
meillo@120	2891 context_replace(curfolder, folder); /* update current folder */
meillo@120	2892 seq_setcur(mp, mp->lowsel); /* update current message */
meillo@120	2893 seq_save(mp); /* synchronize message sequences */
meillo@120	2894 folder_free(mp); /* free folder/message structure */
meillo@120	2895 context_save(); /* save the context file */
meillo@120	2896
meillo@120	2897 [...]
meillo@120	2898
meillo@120	2899 int c; /* current character */
meillo@120	2900 char cp; / miscellaneous character pointer */
meillo@120	2901
meillo@120	2902 [...]
meillo@120	2903
meillo@120	2904 /* NUL-terminate the field */
meillo@120	2905 *cp = '\0';
meillo@118	2906 VE
meillo@120	2907 .Ci 426543622b377fc5d091455cba685e114b6df674
meillo@118	2908 .P
meillo@136	2909 The program code explains enough itself, already.
meillo@136	2910
meillo@118	2911
meillo@118	2912 .U3 "Names
meillo@118	2913 .P
meillo@118	2914 Kernighan and Pike suggest:
meillo@118	2915 ``Use active names for functions''.
meillo@118	2916 .[ [
meillo@118	2917 kernighan pike practice of programming
meillo@118	2918 .], p. 4]
meillo@118	2919 One application of this rule was the rename of
meillo@118	2920 .Fu check_charset()
meillo@118	2921 to
meillo@118	2922 .Fu is_native_charset() .
meillo@118	2923 .Ci 8d77b48284c58c135a6b2787e721597346ab056d
meillo@118	2924 The same change fixed a violation of ``Be accurate'' as well.
meillo@118	2925 The code did not match the expectation the function suggested,
meillo@118	2926 as it, for whatever reason, only compared the first ten characters
meillo@118	2927 of the charset name.
meillo@118	2928 .P
meillo@118	2929 More important than using active names is using descriptive names.
meillo@145	2930 .VS
meillo@145	2931 m_unknown(in); /* the MAGIC invocation... */
meillo@145	2932 VE
meillo@145	2933 Renaming the obscure
meillo@118	2934 .Fu m_unknown()
meillo@145	2935 function was a delightful event, although it made the code less funny.
meillo@118	2936 .Ci 611d68d19204d7cbf5bd585391249cb5bafca846
meillo@118	2937 .P
meillo@118	2938 Magic numbers are generally considered bad style.
meillo@118	2939 Obviously, Kernighan and Pike agree:
meillo@118	2940 ``Give names to magic numbers''.
meillo@118	2941 .[ [
meillo@118	2942 kernighan pike practice of programming
meillo@118	2943 .], p. 19]
meillo@118	2944 One such change was naming the type of input \(en mbox or mail folder \(en
meillo@118	2945 to be scanned:
meillo@118	2946 .VS
meillo@118	2947 #define SCN_MBOX (-1)
meillo@118	2948 #define SCN_FOLD 0
meillo@118	2949 VE
meillo@118	2950 .Ci 7ffb36d28e517a6f3a10272056fc127592ab1c19
meillo@118	2951 .P
meillo@118	2952 The argument
meillo@118	2953 .Ar outnum
meillo@118	2954 of the function
meillo@118	2955 .Fu scan()
meillo@118	2956 in
meillo@118	2957 .Fn uip/scansbr.c
meillo@118	2958 defines the number of the message to be created.
meillo@118	2959 If no message is to be created, the argument is misused to transport
meillo@118	2960 program logic.
meillo@118	2961 This lead to obscure code.
meillo@118	2962 I improved the clarity of the code by introducing two variables:
meillo@118	2963 .VS
meillo@118	2964 int incing = (outnum > 0);
meillo@118	2965 int ismbox = (outnum != 0);
meillo@118	2966 VE
meillo@118	2967 They cover the magic values and are used for conditions.
meillo@118	2968 The variable
meillo@118	2969 .Ar outnum
meillo@118	2970 is only used when it holds an ordinary message number.
meillo@118	2971 .Ci b8b075c77be7794f3ae9ff0e8cedb12b48fd139f
meillo@118	2972 The clarity improvement of the change showed detours in the program logic
meillo@118	2973 of related code parts.
meillo@118	2974 Having the new variables with descriptive names, a more
meillo@121	2975 straight forward implementation became apparent.
meillo@118	2976 Before the clarification was done,
meillo@118	2977 the possibility to improve had not be seen.
meillo@118	2978 .Ci aa60b0ab5e804f8befa890c0a6df0e3143ce0723
meillo@118	2979
meillo@133	2980
meillo@133	2981
meillo@133	2982 .H2 "Structural Rework
meillo@133	2983 .P
meillo@136	2984 Although the stylistic changes described up to here improve the
meillo@136	2985 readability of the source code, all of them are changes ``in the small''.
meillo@136	2986 Structural changes affect a much larger area.
meillo@136	2987 They are more difficult to do but lead to larger improvements,
meillo@136	2988 especially as they influence the outer shape of the tools as well.
meillo@118	2989 .P
meillo@118	2990 At the end of their chapter on style,
meillo@118	2991 Kernighan and Pike ask: ``But why worry about style?''
meillo@136	2992 Following are two examples of structural rework that show
meillo@136	2993 why style is important in the first place.
meillo@136	2994
meillo@136	2995
meillo@136	2996 .U3 "Rework of \f(CWanno\fP
meillo@118	2997 .P
meillo@120	2998 Until 2002,
meillo@120	2999 .Pn anno
meillo@120	3000 had six functional command line switches,
meillo@120	3001 .Sw -component
meillo@120	3002 and
meillo@120	3003 .Sw -text ,
meillo@120	3004 which took an argument each,
meillo@120	3005 and the two pairs of flags,
meillo@120	3006 .Sw -[no]date
meillo@120	3007 and
meillo@120	3008 .Sw -[no]inplace.,
meillo@120	3009 .Sw -component
meillo@120	3010 and
meillo@120	3011 .Sw -text ,
meillo@120	3012 which took an argument each,
meillo@120	3013 and the two pairs of flags,
meillo@120	3014 .Sw -[no]date
meillo@120	3015 and
meillo@120	3016 .Sw -[no]inplace .
meillo@120	3017 Then Jon Steinhart introduced his attachment system.
meillo@120	3018 In need for more advanced annotation handling, he extended
meillo@120	3019 .Pn anno .
meillo@120	3020 He added five more switches:
meillo@120	3021 .Sw -draft ,
meillo@120	3022 .Sw -list ,
meillo@120	3023 .Sw -delete ,
meillo@120	3024 .Sw -append ,
meillo@120	3025 and
meillo@120	3026 .Sw -number ,
meillo@120	3027 the last one taking an argument.
meillo@121	3028 .Ci 7480dbc14bc90f2d872d434205c0784704213252
meillo@120	3029 Later,
meillo@120	3030 .Sw -[no]preserve
meillo@120	3031 was added.
meillo@121	3032 .Ci d9b1d57351d104d7ec1a5621f090657dcce8cb7f
meillo@120	3033 Then, the Synopsis section of the man page
meillo@120	3034 .Mp anno (1)
meillo@120	3035 read:
meillo@120	3036 .VS
meillo@120	3037 anno [+folder] [msgs] [-component field] [-inplace \| -noinplace]
meillo@120	3038 [-date \| -nodate] [-draft] [-append] [-list] [-delete]
meillo@120	3039 [-number [num\|all]] [-preserve \| -nopreserve] [-version]
meillo@120	3040 [-help] [-text body]
meillo@120	3041 VE
meillo@120	3042 .LP
meillo@120	3043 The implementation followed the same structure.
meillo@120	3044 Problems became visible when
meillo@120	3045 .Cl "anno -list -number 42
meillo@120	3046 worked on the current message instead on message number 42,
meillo@120	3047 and
meillo@120	3048 .Cl "anno -list -number l:5
meillo@124	3049 did not work on the last five messages but failed with the mysterious
meillo@120	3050 error message: ``anno: missing argument to -list''.
meillo@121	3051 Yet, the invocation matched the specification in the man page.
meillo@120	3052 There, the correct use of
meillo@120	3053 .Sw -number
meillo@120	3054 was defined as being
meillo@120	3055 .Cl "[-number [num\|all]]
meillo@120	3056 and the textual description for the combination with
meillo@120	3057 .Sw -list
meillo@120	3058 read:
meillo@120	3059 .QS
meillo@164	3060 The
meillo@164	3061 .Sw -list
meillo@164	3062 option produces a listing of the field bodies for
meillo@120	3063 header fields with names matching the specified component,
meillo@164	3064 one per line. The listing is numbered, starting at 1, if the
meillo@164	3065 .Sw -number
meillo@164	3066 option is also used.
meillo@120	3067 .QE
meillo@120	3068 .LP
meillo@120	3069 The problem was manifold.
meillo@120	3070 The code required a numeric argument to the
meillo@120	3071 .Sw -number
meillo@120	3072 switch.
meillo@120	3073 If it was missing or non-numeric,
meillo@120	3074 .Pn anno
meillo@120	3075 aborted with an error message that had an off-by-one error,
meillo@120	3076 printing the switch one before the failing one.
meillo@120	3077 Semantically, the argument to the
meillo@120	3078 .Sw -number
meillo@120	3079 switch is only necessary in combination with
meillo@120	3080 .Sw -delete ,
meillo@120	3081 but not with
meillo@120	3082 .Sw -list .
meillo@120	3083 In the former case it is even necessary.
meillo@120	3084 .P
meillo@120	3085 Trying to fix these problems on the surface would not have solved it truly.
meillo@120	3086 The problems discovered originate from a discrepance between the semantic
meillo@120	3087 structure of the problem and the structure implemented in the program.
meillo@120	3088 Such structural differences can not be cured on the surface.
meillo@120	3089 They need to be solved by adjusting the structure of the implementation
meillo@120	3090 to the structure of the problem.
meillo@120	3091 .P
meillo@120	3092 In 2002, the new switches
meillo@120	3093 .Sw -list
meillo@120	3094 and
meillo@120	3095 .Sw -delete
meillo@120	3096 were added in the same way, the
meillo@120	3097 .Sw -number
meillo@120	3098 switch for instance had been added.
meillo@120	3099 Yet, they are of structural different type.
meillo@120	3100 Semantically,
meillo@120	3101 .Sw -list
meillo@120	3102 and
meillo@120	3103 .Sw -delete
meillo@120	3104 introduce modes of operation.
meillo@120	3105 Historically,
meillo@120	3106 .Pn anno
meillo@120	3107 had only one operation mode: adding header fields.
meillo@120	3108 With the extension, it got two moder modes:
meillo@120	3109 listing and deleting header fields.
meillo@120	3110 The structure of the code changes did not pay respect to this
meillo@120	3111 fundamental change to
meillo@120	3112 .Pn anno 's
meillo@120	3113 behavior.
meillo@120	3114 Neither the implementation nor the documentation did clearly
meillo@120	3115 define them as being exclusive modes of operation.
meillo@120	3116 Having identified the problem, I solved it by putting structure into
meillo@120	3117 .Pn anno
meillo@120	3118 and its documentation.
meillo@120	3119 .Ci d54c8db8bdf01e8381890f7729bc0ef4a055ea11
meillo@120	3120 .P
meillo@120	3121 The difference is visible in both, the code and the documentation.
meillo@121	3122 The following code excerpt:
meillo@120	3123 .VS
meillo@120	3124 int delete = -2; /* delete header element if set */
meillo@120	3125 int list = 0; /* list header elements if set */
meillo@120	3126 [...]
meillo@121	3127 case DELETESW: /* delete annotations */
meillo@121	3128 delete = 0;
meillo@121	3129 continue;
meillo@121	3130 case LISTSW: /* produce a listing */
meillo@121	3131 list = 1;
meillo@121	3132 continue;
meillo@120	3133 VE
meillo@121	3134 .LP
meillo@121	3135 was replaced by:
meillo@120	3136 .VS
meillo@120	3137 static enum { MODE_ADD, MODE_DEL, MODE_LIST } mode = MODE_ADD;
meillo@120	3138 [...]
meillo@121	3139 case DELETESW: /* delete annotations */
meillo@121	3140 mode = MODE_DEL;
meillo@121	3141 continue;
meillo@121	3142 case LISTSW: /* produce a listing */
meillo@121	3143 mode = MODE_LIST;
meillo@121	3144 continue;
meillo@120	3145 VE
meillo@120	3146 .LP
meillo@121	3147 The replacement code does not only reflect the problem's structure better,
meillo@121	3148 it is easier to understand as well.
meillo@121	3149 The same applies to the documentation.
meillo@120	3150 The man page was completely reorganized to propagate the same structure.
meillo@121	3151 This is visible in the Synopsis section:
meillo@120	3152 .VS
meillo@120	3153 anno [+folder] [msgs] [-component field] [-text body]
meillo@120	3154 [-append] [-date \| -nodate] [-preserve \| -nopreserve]
meillo@120	3155 [-Version] [-help]
meillo@120	3156
meillo@120	3157 anno -delete [+folder] [msgs] [-component field] [-text
meillo@120	3158 body] [-number num \| all ] [-preserve \| -nopreserve]
meillo@120	3159 [-Version] [-help]
meillo@120	3160
meillo@120	3161 anno -list [+folder] [msgs] [-component field] [-number]
meillo@120	3162 [-Version] [-help]
meillo@120	3163 VE
meillo@121	3164 .\" XXX think about explaining the -preserve rework?
meillo@118	3165
meillo@58	3166
meillo@58	3167
meillo@133	3168 .U3 "Path Conversion
meillo@133	3169 .P
meillo@134	3170 Four kinds of path names can appear in MH:
meillo@134	3171 .IP (1)
meillo@134	3172 Absolute Unix directory paths, like
meillo@134	3173 .Fn /etc/passwd .
meillo@134	3174 .IP (2)
meillo@134	3175 Relative Unix directory paths, like
meillo@134	3176 .Fn ./foo/bar .
meillo@134	3177 .IP (3)
meillo@134	3178 Absolute MH folder paths, like
meillo@134	3179 .Fn +friends/phil .
meillo@134	3180 .IP (4)
meillo@134	3181 Relative MH folder paths, like
meillo@134	3182 .Fn @subfolder .
meillo@134	3183 .P
meillo@134	3184 The last type, relative MH folder paths, are hardly documented.
meillo@134	3185 Nonetheless, they are useful for large mail storages.
meillo@134	3186 The current mail folder is specified as `\c
meillo@134	3187 .Fn @ ',
meillo@134	3188 just like the current directory is specified as `\c
meillo@134	3189 .Fn . '.
meillo@134	3190 .P
meillo@134	3191 To allow MH tools to understand all four notations,
meillo@134	3192 they need to convert between them.
meillo@134	3193 In nmh, these path name conversion functions were located in the files
meillo@134	3194 .Fn sbr/path.c
meillo@134	3195 (``return a pathname'') and
meillo@134	3196 .Fn sbr/m_maildir.c
meillo@134	3197 (``get the path for the mail directory'').
meillo@134	3198 The seven functions in the two files were documented with no more
meillo@134	3199 than two comments, which described obvious information.
meillo@134	3200 The function signatures were neither explaining:
meillo@134	3201 .VS
meillo@134	3202 char path(char , int);
meillo@134	3203 char pluspath(char );
meillo@134	3204 char m_mailpath(char );
meillo@134	3205 char m_maildir(char );
meillo@134	3206 VE
meillo@134	3207 .P
meillo@134	3208 My investigation provides the following description:
meillo@134	3209 .BU
meillo@134	3210 The second parameter of
meillo@134	3211 .Fu path()
meillo@134	3212 defines the type of path given as first parameter.
meillo@134	3213 Directory paths are converted to absolute directory paths.
meillo@134	3214 Folder paths are converted to absolute folder paths.
meillo@134	3215 Folder paths must not include a leading `@' character.
meillo@134	3216 Leading plus characters are preserved.
meillo@134	3217 The result is a pointer to newly allocated memory.
meillo@134	3218 .BU
meillo@134	3219 .Fu pluspath()
meillo@134	3220 is a convenience-wrapper to
meillo@134	3221 .Fu path() ,
meillo@134	3222 to convert folder paths only.
meillo@134	3223 This function can not be used for directory paths.
meillo@134	3224 An empty string parameter causes a buffer overflow.
meillo@134	3225 .BU
meillo@134	3226 .Fu m_mailpath()
meillo@134	3227 converts directory paths to absolute directory paths.
meillo@134	3228 The characters `+' or `@' at the beginning of the path name are
meillo@134	3229 treated literal, i.e. as the first character of a relative directory path.
meillo@134	3230 Hence, this function can not be used for folder paths.
meillo@134	3231 In any case, the result is an absolute directory path.
meillo@134	3232 The result is a pointer to newly allocated memory.
meillo@134	3233 .BU
meillo@134	3234 .Fu m_maildir()
meillo@134	3235 returns the parameter unchanged if it is an absolute directory path
meillo@134	3236 or begins with the entry `.' or `..'.
meillo@134	3237 All other strings are prepended with the current working directory.
meillo@134	3238 Hence, this functions can not be used for folder paths.
meillo@134	3239 The result is either an absolute directory path or a relative
meillo@134	3240 directory path, starting with a dot.
meillo@134	3241 In contrast to the other functions, the result is a pointer to
meillo@134	3242 static memory.
meillo@134	3243 .P
meillo@134	3244 The situation was obscure, irritating, error-prone, and non-orthogonal.
meillo@134	3245 No clear terminology was used to name the different kinds of path names.
meillo@134	3246 The first argument of
meillo@134	3247 .Fu m_mailpath() ,
meillo@134	3248 for instance, was named
meillo@134	3249 .Ar folder ,
meillo@134	3250 though
meillo@134	3251 .Fu m_mailpath()
meillo@134	3252 can not be used for MH folders.
meillo@134	3253 .P
meillo@134	3254 I reworked the path name conversion completely, introducing clarity.
meillo@134	3255 First of all, the terminology needed to be defined.
meillo@134	3256 A path name is either in the Unix domain, then it is called
meillo@134	3257 \fIdirectory path\fP, `dirpath' for short, or it is in the MH domain,
meillo@134	3258 then it is called \fIfolder path\fP, `folpath' for short.
meillo@134	3259 The two terms need to be used with strict distinction.
meillo@134	3260 Having a clear terminology is often an indicator of having understood
meillo@134	3261 the problem itself.
meillo@134	3262 Second, I exploited the concept of path type indicators.
meillo@134	3263 By requesting every path name to start with a clear type identifier,
meillo@134	3264 conversion between the types can be fully automated.
meillo@134	3265 Thus the tools can accept paths of any type from the user.
meillo@134	3266 Therefore, it was necessary to require relative directory paths to be
meillo@134	3267 prefixed with a dot character.
meillo@134	3268 In consequence, the dot character could no longer be an alias for the
meillo@134	3269 current message.
meillo@134	3270 .Ci cff0e16925e7edbd25b8b9d6d4fbdf03e0e60c01
meillo@134	3271 Third, I created three new functions to replace the previous mess:
meillo@134	3272 .BU
meillo@134	3273 .Fu expandfol()
meillo@134	3274 converts folder paths to absolute folder paths,
meillo@134	3275 without the leading plus character.
meillo@134	3276 Directory paths are simply passed through.
meillo@134	3277 This function is to be used for folder paths only, thus the name.
meillo@134	3278 The result is a pointer to static memory.
meillo@134	3279 .BU
meillo@134	3280 .Fu expanddir()
meillo@134	3281 converts directory paths to absolute directory paths.
meillo@134	3282 Folder paths are treated as relative directory paths.
meillo@134	3283 This function is to be used for directory paths only, thus the name.
meillo@134	3284 The result is a pointer to static memory.
meillo@134	3285 .BU
meillo@134	3286 .Fu toabsdir()
meillo@134	3287 converts any type of path to an absolute directory path.
meillo@134	3288 This is the function of choice for path conversion.
meillo@134	3289 Absolute directory paths are the most general representation of a
meillo@134	3290 path name.
meillo@134	3291 The result is a pointer to static memory.
meillo@134	3292 .P
meillo@134	3293 The new functions have names that indicate their use.
meillo@134	3294 Two of the functions convert relative to absolute path names of the
meillo@134	3295 same type.
meillo@134	3296 The third function converts any path name type to the most general one,
meillo@134	3297 the absolute directory path.
meillo@134	3298 All of the functions return pointers to static memory.
meillo@134	3299 All three functions are implemented in
meillo@134	3300 .Fn sbr/path.c .
meillo@134	3301 .Fn sbr/m_maildir.c
meillo@134	3302 is removed.
meillo@134	3303 .P
meillo@134	3304 Along with the path conversion rework, I also replaced
meillo@134	3305 .Fu getfolder(FDEF)
meillo@134	3306 with
meillo@134	3307 .Fu getdeffol()
meillo@134	3308 and
meillo@134	3309 .Fu getfolder(FCUR)
meillo@134	3310 with
meillo@134	3311 .Fu getcurfol() ,
meillo@134	3312 which is only a convenience wrapper for
meillo@134	3313 .Fu expandfol("@") .
meillo@134	3314 This code was moved from
meillo@134	3315 .Fn sbr/getfolder.c
meillo@134	3316 to
meillo@134	3317 .Fn sbr/path.c .
meillo@134	3318 .P
meillo@134	3319 The related function
meillo@134	3320 .Fu etcpath()
meillo@134	3321 was moved to
meillo@134	3322 .Fn sbr/path.c ,
meillo@134	3323 too.
meillo@134	3324 Previously, it had been located in
meillo@134	3325 .Fn config/config.c ,
meillo@134	3326 for whatever reasons.
meillo@134	3327 .P
meillo@134	3328 .Fn sbr/path.c
meillo@134	3329 now contains all path handling code.
meillo@134	3330 Only 173 lines of code were needed to replace the previous 252 lines.
meillo@134	3331 The readability of the code is highly improved.
meillo@134	3332 Additionally, each of the six exported and one static functions
meillo@134	3333 is introduced by an explaining comment.
meillo@134	3334 .Ci d39e2c447b0d163a5a63f480b23d06edb7a73aa0
meillo@133	3335
meillo@133	3336
meillo@133	3337
meillo@133	3338
meillo@133	3339 .H2 "Profile Reading
meillo@133	3340 .P
meillo@138	3341 The MH profile contains the configuration for the user-specific MH setup.
meillo@138	3342 MH tools read the profile right after starting up,
meillo@138	3343 as it contains the location of the user's mail storage
meillo@138	3344 and similar settings that influence the whole setup.
meillo@138	3345 Further more, the profile contains the default switches for the tools,
meillo@138	3346 hence, it must be read before the command line switches are processed.
meillo@138	3347 .P
meillo@138	3348 For historic reasons, some MH tools did not read the profile and context.
meillo@138	3349 Among them were
meillo@138	3350 .Pn post /\c
meillo@138	3351 .Pn spost ,
meillo@138	3352 .Pn mhmail ,
meillo@138	3353 and
meillo@138	3354 .Pn slocal .
meillo@138	3355 The reason why these tools ignored the profile were not clearly stated.
meillo@138	3356 During the discussion on the nmh-workers mailing list,
meillo@138	3357 .[
meillo@138	3358 nmh-workers levine post profile
meillo@138	3359 .]
meillo@138	3360 David Levine posted an explanation, quoting John Romine:
meillo@138	3361 .QS
meillo@138	3362 I asked John Romine and here's what he had to say, which
meillo@138	3363 agrees and provides an example that convinces me:
meillo@138	3364 .QS
meillo@164	3365 My take on this is that
meillo@164	3366 .Pn post
meillo@164	3367 should not be called by users directly, and it doesn't read the
meillo@164	3368 .Fn .mh_profile
meillo@138	3369 (only front-end UI programs read the profile).
meillo@138	3370 .QP
meillo@164	3371 For example, there can be contexts where
meillo@164	3372 .Pn post
meillo@164	3373 is called by a helper program (like `\c
meillo@164	3374 .Pn mhmail ')
meillo@164	3375 which may be run by a non-MH user.
meillo@164	3376 We don't want this to prompt the user to create an MH profile, etc.
meillo@138	3377 .QP
meillo@164	3378 My suggestion would be to have
meillo@164	3379 .Pn send
meillo@164	3380 pass a (hidden) `\c
meillo@164	3381 .Sw -fileproc
meillo@164	3382 .Ar proc '
meillo@164	3383 option to
meillo@164	3384 .Pn post
meillo@164	3385 if needed.
meillo@164	3386 You could also
meillo@164	3387 use an environment variable (I think
meillo@164	3388 .Pn send /\c
meillo@164	3389 .Pn whatnow
meillo@164	3390 do this).
meillo@138	3391 .QE
meillo@164	3392 I think that's the way to go.
meillo@164	3393 My personal preference is to use a command line option,
meillo@164	3394 not an environment variable.
meillo@138	3395 .QE
meillo@138	3396 .P
meillo@138	3397 To solve the problem of
meillo@138	3398 .Pn post
meillo@138	3399 not honoring the
meillo@138	3400 .Pe fileproc
meillo@138	3401 profile entry,
meillo@138	3402 the community roughly agreed that a switch
meillo@138	3403 .Sw -fileproc
meillo@138	3404 should be added to
meillo@138	3405 .Pn post
meillo@138	3406 to be able to pass a different fileproc.
meillo@138	3407 I strongly disagree with this approach because it does not solve
meillo@138	3408 the problem; it only removes a single symptom.
meillo@138	3409 The problem is that
meillo@138	3410 .Pn post
meillo@138	3411 does not behave as expected.
meillo@138	3412 But all programs should behave as expected.
meillo@138	3413 Clear and simple concepts are a precondition for this.
meillo@138	3414 Hence, the real solution is having all MH tools read the profile.
meillo@138	3415 .P
meillo@138	3416 Yet, the problem has a further aspect.
meillo@138	3417 It mainly originates in
meillo@138	3418 .Pn mhmail .
meillo@138	3419 .Pn mhmail
meillo@138	3420 was intended to be a replacement for
meillo@138	3421 .Pn mailx
meillo@138	3422 on systems with MH installations.
meillo@138	3423 .Pn mhmail
meillo@138	3424 should have been able to use just like
meillo@138	3425 .Pn mailx ,
meillo@138	3426 but sending the message via MH's
meillo@138	3427 .Pn post
meillo@138	3428 instead of
meillo@138	3429 .Pn sendmail .
meillo@138	3430 Using
meillo@138	3431 .Pn mhmail
meillo@138	3432 should not be influenced by the question whether the user had
meillo@138	3433 MH set up for himself or not.
meillo@138	3434 .Pn mhmail
meillo@138	3435 did not read the profile as this requests the user to set up MH
meillo@138	3436 if not done yet.
meillo@138	3437 As
meillo@138	3438 .Pn mhmail
meillo@138	3439 used
meillo@138	3440 .Pn post ,
meillo@138	3441 .Pn post
meillo@138	3442 could not read the profile neither.
meillo@138	3443 This is the reason why
meillo@138	3444 .Pn post
meillo@138	3445 does not read the profile.
meillo@138	3446 This is the reason for the actual problem.
meillo@138	3447 It was not much of a problem because
meillo@138	3448 .Pn post
meillo@138	3449 was not intended to be used by users directly.
meillo@138	3450 .Pn send
meillo@138	3451 is the interactive front-end to
meillo@138	3452 .Pn post .
meillo@138	3453 .Pn send
meillo@138	3454 read the profile and passed all relevant values on the command line to
meillo@138	3455 .Pn post
meillo@138	3456 \(en an awkward solution.
meillo@138	3457 .P
meillo@138	3458 The important insight is that
meillo@138	3459 .Pn mhmail
meillo@138	3460 is no true MH tool.
meillo@138	3461 The concepts broke because this outlandish tool was treated as any other
meillo@138	3462 MH tool.
meillo@138	3463 Instead it should have been treated accordingly to its foreign style.
meillo@138	3464 The solution is not to prevent the tools reading the profile but
meillo@138	3465 to instruct them reading a different profile.
meillo@138	3466 .Pn mhmail
meillo@138	3467 could have set up a well-defined profile and caused all MH tools
meillo@138	3468 in the session use it by exporting an environment variable.
meillo@138	3469 With this approach, no special cases would have been introduced,
meillo@138	3470 no surprises would have been caused.
meillo@138	3471 By writing a clean-profile-wrapper, the concept could have been
meillo@138	3472 generalized orthogonally to the whole MH toolchest.
meillo@138	3473 Then Rose's motivation behind the decision that
meillo@138	3474 .Pn post
meillo@138	3475 ignores the profile, as quoted by Jeffrey Honig,
meillo@138	3476 .[
meillo@138	3477 nmh-workers post profile
meillo@138	3478 .]
meillo@138	3479 would have become possible:
meillo@138	3480 .QS
meillo@138	3481 when you run mh commands in a script, you want all the defaults to be
meillo@138	3482 what the man page says.
meillo@138	3483 when you run a command by hand, then you want your own defaults...
meillo@138	3484 .QE
meillo@138	3485 .LP
meillo@138	3486 Yet, I consider this explanation short-sighted.
meillo@138	3487 We should rather regard theses two cases as just two different MH setups,
meillo@138	3488 based on two different profiles.
meillo@138	3489 Mapping such problems on the concepts of switching between different
meillo@138	3490 profiles, solves them once for all.
meillo@138	3491 .P
meillo@138	3492 In mmh, the wish to have
meillo@138	3493 .Pn mhmail
meillo@138	3494 as as replacement for
meillo@138	3495 .Pn mailx
meillo@138	3496 is considered obsolete.
meillo@138	3497 Mmh's
meillo@138	3498 .Pn mhmail
meillo@138	3499 does no longer cover this use-case.
meillo@138	3500 Currently,
meillo@138	3501 .Pn mhmail
meillo@138	3502 is in a transition state.
meillo@138	3503 .Ci 32d4f9daaa70519be3072479232ff7be0500d009
meillo@138	3504 It may become a front-end to
meillo@138	3505 .Pn comp ,
meillo@138	3506 which provides an interface more convenient in some cases.
meillo@138	3507 In this case,
meillo@138	3508 .Pn mhmail
meillo@138	3509 will become an ordinary MH tool, reading the profile.
meillo@138	3510 If, however, this idea will not convince, then
meillo@138	3511 .Pn mhmail
meillo@138	3512 will be removed.
meillo@138	3513 .P
meillo@138	3514 Every program in the mmh toolchest reads the profile.
meillo@138	3515 The only exception is
meillo@138	3516 .Pn slocal ,
meillo@138	3517 which is not considered part of the mmh toolchest.
meillo@138	3518 This MDA is only distributed with mmh, currently.
meillo@138	3519 Mmh has no
meillo@138	3520 .Pn post
meillo@138	3521 program, but
meillo@138	3522 .Pn spost ,
meillo@138	3523 which now reads the profile.
meillo@138	3524 .Ci 3e017a7abbdf69bf0dff7a4073275961eda1ded8
meillo@138	3525 With this change,
meillo@138	3526 .Pn send
meillo@138	3527 and
meillo@138	3528 .Pn spost
meillo@138	3529 can be considered to be merged.
meillo@138	3530 Direct invocations of
meillo@138	3531 .Pn spost
meillo@138	3532 are only done by the to-be-changed
meillo@138	3533 .Pn mhmail
meillo@138	3534 implementation and by
meillo@138	3535 .Pn rcvdist ,
meillo@138	3536 which will require rework.
meillo@138	3537 .P
meillo@138	3538 The
meillo@138	3539 .Fu context_foil()
meillo@138	3540 function to pretend to have read an empty profile was removed.
meillo@138	3541 .Ci 68af8da96bea87a5541988870130b6209ce396f6
meillo@138	3542 All mmh tools read the profile.
meillo@133	3543
meillo@133	3544
meillo@127	3545
meillo@121	3546 .H2 "Standard Libraries
meillo@22	3547 .P
meillo@121	3548 MH is one decade older than the POSIX and ANSI C standards.
meillo@121	3549 Hence, MH included own implementations of functions
meillo@121	3550 that are standardized and thus widely available today,
meillo@121	3551 but were not back then.
meillo@121	3552 Today, twenty years after the POSIX and ANSI C were published,
meillo@121	3553 developers can expect system to comply with these standards.
meillo@121	3554 In consequence, MH-specific replacements for standard functions
meillo@121	3555 can and should be dropped.
meillo@121	3556 Kernighan and Pike advise: ``Use standard libraries.''
meillo@121	3557 .[ [
meillo@121	3558 kernighan pike practice of programming
meillo@121	3559 .], p. 196]
meillo@121	3560 Actually, MH had followed this advice in history,
meillo@121	3561 but it had not adjusted to the changes in this field.
meillo@121	3562 The
meillo@121	3563 .Fu snprintf()
meillo@121	3564 function, for instance, was standardized with C99 and is available
meillo@121	3565 almost everywhere because of its high usefulness.
meillo@123	3566 In project's own implementation of
meillo@121	3567 .Fu snprintf()
meillo@123	3568 was dropped in March 2012 in favor for using the one of the
meillo@123	3569 standard library.
meillo@123	3570 .Ci 0052f1024deb0a0a2fc2e5bacf93d45a5a9c9b32
meillo@123	3571 Such decisions limit the portability of mmh
meillo@121	3572 if systems don't support these standardized and widespread functions.
meillo@123	3573 This compromise is made because mmh focuses on the future.
meillo@121	3574 .P
meillo@123	3575 I am not yet thirty years old and my C and Unix experience comprises
meillo@123	3576 only half a dozen years.
meillo@121	3577 Hence, I need to learn about the history in retrospective.
meillo@121	3578 I have not used those ancient constructs myself.
meillo@121	3579 I have not suffered from their incompatibilities.
meillo@121	3580 I have not longed for standardization.
meillo@121	3581 All my programming experience is from a time when ANSI C and POSIX
meillo@121	3582 were well established already.
meillo@121	3583 I have only read a lot of books about the (good) old times.
meillo@121	3584 This puts me in a difficult positions when working with old code.
meillo@123	3585 I need to freshly acquire knowledge about old code constructs and ancient
meillo@123	3586 programming styles, whereas older programmers know these things by
meillo@123	3587 heart from their own experience.
meillo@121	3588 .P
meillo@123	3589 Being aware of the situation, I rather let people with more historic
meillo@123	3590 experience replace ancient code constructs with standardized ones.
meillo@121	3591 Lyndon Nerenberg covered large parts of this task for the nmh project.
meillo@121	3592 He converted project-specific functions to POSIX replacements,
meillo@121	3593 also removing the conditionals compilation of now standardized features.
meillo@123	3594 Ken Hornstein and David Levine had their part in the work, too.
meillo@121	3595 Often, I only needed to pull over changes from nmh into mmh.
meillo@121	3596 These changes include many commits; these are among them:
meillo@121	3597 .Ci 768b5edd9623b7238e12ec8dfc409b82a1ed9e2d
meillo@121	3598 .Ci 0052f1024deb0a0a2fc2e5bacf93d45a5a9c9b32 .
meillo@102	3599 .P
meillo@123	3600 During my own work, I tidied up the \fIMH standard library\fP,
meillo@123	3601 .Fn libmh.a ,
meillo@123	3602 which is located in the
meillo@123	3603 .Fn sbr
meillo@123	3604 (``subroutines'') directory in the source tree.
meillo@123	3605 The MH library includes functions that mmh tools usually need.
meillo@123	3606 Among them are MH-specific functions for profile, context, sequence,
meillo@123	3607 and folder handling, but as well
meillo@123	3608 MH-independent functions, such as auxiliary string functions,
meillo@123	3609 portability interfaces and error-checking wrappers for critical
meillo@123	3610 functions of the standard library.
meillo@123	3611 .P
meillo@123	3612 I have replaced the
meillo@121	3613 .Fu atooi()
meillo@121	3614 function with calls to
meillo@123	3615 .Fu strtoul()
meillo@139	3616 with the third parameter, the base, set to eight.
meillo@121	3617 .Fu strtoul()
meillo@123	3618 is part of C89 and thus considered safe to use.
meillo@121	3619 .Ci c490c51b3c0f8871b6953bd0c74551404f840a74
meillo@102	3620 .P
meillo@121	3621 I did remove project-included fallback implementations of
meillo@121	3622 .Fu memmove()
meillo@121	3623 and
meillo@121	3624 .Fu strerror() ,
meillo@121	3625 although Peter Maydell had re-included them into nmh in 2008
meillo@121	3626 to support SunOS 4.
meillo@121	3627 Nevertheless, these functions are part of ANSI C.
meillo@121	3628 Systems that do not even provide full ANSI C support should not
meillo@121	3629 put a load on mmh.
meillo@121	3630 .Ci b067ff5c465a5d243ce5a19e562085a9a1a97215
meillo@121	3631 .P
meillo@121	3632 The
meillo@121	3633 .Fu copy()
meillo@121	3634 function copies the string in argument one to the location in two.
meillo@121	3635 In contrast to
meillo@121	3636 .Fu strcpy() ,
meillo@121	3637 it returns a pointer to the terminating null-byte in the destination area.
meillo@123	3638 The code was adjusted to replace
meillo@121	3639 .Fu copy()
meillo@123	3640 with
meillo@121	3641 .Fu strcpy() ,
meillo@121	3642 except within
meillo@121	3643 .Fu concat() ,
meillo@121	3644 where
meillo@121	3645 .Fu copy()
meillo@123	3646 was more convenient.
meillo@123	3647 Therefore, the definition of
meillo@121	3648 .Fu copy()
meillo@123	3649 was moved into the source file of
meillo@121	3650 .Fu concat()
meillo@123	3651 and its visibility is now limited to it.
meillo@121	3652 .Ci 552fd7253e5ee9e554c5c7a8248a6322aa4363bb
meillo@121	3653 .P
meillo@121	3654 The function
meillo@121	3655 .Fu r1bindex()
meillo@121	3656 had been a generalized version of
meillo@121	3657 .Fu basename()
meillo@121	3658 with minor differences.
meillo@121	3659 As all calls to
meillo@121	3660 .Fu r1bindex()
meillo@121	3661 had the slash (`/') as delimiter anyway,
meillo@121	3662 replacing
meillo@121	3663 .Fu r1bindex()
meillo@121	3664 with the more specific and better-named function
meillo@121	3665 .Fu basename()
meillo@121	3666 became desirable.
meillo@121	3667 Unfortunately, many of the 54 calls to
meillo@121	3668 .Fu r1bindex()
meillo@123	3669 depended on a special behavior,
meillo@121	3670 which differed from the POSIX specification for
meillo@121	3671 .Fu basename() .
meillo@121	3672 Hence,
meillo@121	3673 .Fu r1bindex()
meillo@121	3674 was kept but renamed to
meillo@123	3675 .Fu mhbasename() ,
meillo@123	3676 fixing the delimiter to the slash.
meillo@121	3677 .Ci 240013872c392fe644bd4f79382d9f5314b4ea60
meillo@121	3678 For possible uses of
meillo@121	3679 .Fu r1bindex()
meillo@121	3680 with a different delimiter,
meillo@121	3681 the ANSI C function
meillo@121	3682 .Fu strrchr()
meillo@121	3683 provides the core functionality.
meillo@121	3684 .P
meillo@121	3685 The
meillo@121	3686 .Fu ssequal()
meillo@121	3687 function \(en apparently for ``substring equal'' \(en
meillo@121	3688 was renamed to
meillo@121	3689 .Fu isprefix() ,
meillo@121	3690 because this is what it actually checks.
meillo@121	3691 .Ci c20b4fa14515c7ab388ce35411d89a7a92300711
meillo@121	3692 Its source file had included the following comments, no joke.
meillo@121	3693 .VS
meillo@121	3694 /*
meillo@121	3695 * THIS CODE DOES NOT WORK AS ADVERTISED.
meillo@121	3696 * It is actually checking if s1 is a PREFIX of s2.
meillo@121	3697 * All calls to this function need to be checked to see
meillo@121	3698 * if that needs to be changed. Prefix checking is cheaper, so
meillo@121	3699 * should be kept if it's sufficient.
meillo@121	3700 */
meillo@121	3701
meillo@121	3702 /*
meillo@121	3703 * Check if s1 is a substring of s2.
meillo@121	3704 * If yes, then return 1, else return 0.
meillo@121	3705 */
meillo@121	3706 VE
meillo@123	3707 Two months later, it was completely removed by replacing it with
meillo@123	3708 .Fu strncmp() .
meillo@123	3709 .Ci b0b1dd37ff515578cf7cba51625189eb34a196cb
meillo@121	3710
meillo@102	3711
meillo@102	3712
meillo@102	3713
meillo@133	3714
meillo@133	3715 .H2 "User Data Locations
meillo@133	3716 .P
meillo@133	3717 In nmh, a personal setup consists of the MH profile and the MH directory.
meillo@133	3718 The profile is a file named
meillo@133	3719 .Fn \&.mh_profile
meillo@133	3720 in the user's home directory.
meillo@133	3721 It contains the static configuration.
meillo@133	3722 It also contains the location of the MH directory in the profile entry
meillo@133	3723 .Pe Path .
meillo@133	3724 The MH directory contains the mail storage and is the first
meillo@133	3725 place to search for personal forms, scan formats, and similar
meillo@133	3726 configuration files.
meillo@133	3727 The location of the MH directory can be chosen freely by the user.
meillo@133	3728 The default and usual name is a directory named
meillo@133	3729 .Fn Mail
meillo@133	3730 in the home directory.
meillo@133	3731 .P
meillo@133	3732 The way MH data is splitted between profile and MH directory is a legacy.
meillo@133	3733 It is only sensible in a situation where the profile is the only
meillo@133	3734 configuration file.
meillo@133	3735 Why else should the mail storage and the configuration files be intermixed?
meillo@133	3736 They are different kinds of data:
meillo@133	3737 The data to be operated on and the configuration to change how
meillo@133	3738 tools operate.
meillo@133	3739 Splitting the configuration between the profile and the MH directory
meillo@133	3740 is bad.
meillo@133	3741 Merging the mail storage and the configuration in one directory is bad
meillo@133	3742 as well.
meillo@133	3743 As the mail storage and the configuration were not separated sensibly
meillo@133	3744 in the first place, I did it now.
meillo@133	3745 .P
meillo@133	3746 Personal mmh data is grouped by type, resulting in two distinct parts:
meillo@133	3747 The mail storage and the configuration.
meillo@133	3748 In mmh, the mail storage directory still contains all the messages,
meillo@133	3749 but, in exception of public sequences files, nothing else.
meillo@133	3750 In difference to nmh, the auxiliary configuration files are no longer
meillo@133	3751 located there.
meillo@133	3752 Therefore, the directory is no longer called the user's \fIMH directory\fP
meillo@133	3753 but his \fImail storage\fP.
meillo@133	3754 Its location is still user-chosen, with the default name
meillo@133	3755 .Fn Mail ,
meillo@133	3756 in the user's home directory.
meillo@133	3757 In mmh, the configuration is grouped together in
meillo@133	3758 the hidden directory
meillo@133	3759 .Fn \&.mmh
meillo@133	3760 in the user's home directory.
meillo@133	3761 This \fImmh directory\fP contains the context file, personal forms,
meillo@133	3762 scan formats, and the like, but also the user's profile, now named
meillo@133	3763 .Fn profile .
meillo@133	3764 The location of the profile is no longer fixed to
meillo@133	3765 .Fn $HOME/.mh_profile
meillo@133	3766 but to
meillo@133	3767 .Fn $HOME/.mmh/profile .
meillo@133	3768 Having both, the file
meillo@133	3769 .Fn $HOME/.mh_profile
meillo@133	3770 and the configuration directory
meillo@133	3771 .Fn $HOME/.mmh
meillo@133	3772 appeared to be inconsistent.
meillo@133	3773 The approach chosen for mmh is consistent, simple, and familiar to
meillo@133	3774 Unix users.
meillo@133	3775 .P
meillo@133	3776 MH allows users to have multiiple MH setups.
meillo@133	3777 Therefore, it is necessary to select a different profile.
meillo@133	3778 The profile is the single entry point to access the rest of a
meillo@133	3779 personal MH setup.
meillo@133	3780 In nmh, the environment variable
meillo@133	3781 .Ev MH
meillo@133	3782 could be used to specifiy a different profile.
meillo@133	3783 To operate in the same MH setup with a separate context,
meillo@133	3784 the
meillo@133	3785 .Ev MHCONTEXT
meillo@133	3786 environment variable could be used.
meillo@133	3787 This allows having own current folders and current messages in
meillo@133	3788 each terminal, for instance.
meillo@133	3789 In mmh, three environment variables are used.
meillo@133	3790 .Ev MMH
meillo@133	3791 overrides the default location of the mmh directory (\c
meillo@133	3792 .Fn .mmh ).
meillo@133	3793 .Ev MMHP
meillo@133	3794 and
meillo@133	3795 .Ev MMHC
meillo@133	3796 override the paths to the profile and context files, respectively.
meillo@133	3797 This approach allows the set of personal configuration files to be chosen
meillo@133	3798 independently from the profile, context, and mail storage.
meillo@133	3799 .P
meillo@133	3800 The separation of the files by type is sensible and convenient.
meillo@133	3801 The new approach has no functional disadvantages,
meillo@133	3802 as every setup I can imagine can be implemented with both approaches,
meillo@133	3803 possibly even easier with the new approach.
meillo@133	3804 The main achievement of the change is the clear and sensible split
meillo@133	3805 between mail storage and configuration.
meillo@133	3806
meillo@133	3807
meillo@133	3808
meillo@133	3809
meillo@133	3810
meillo@118	3811 .H2 "Modularization
meillo@118	3812 .P
meillo@123	3813 The source code of the mmh tools is located in the
meillo@122	3814 .Fn uip
meillo@123	3815 (``user interface programs'') directory.
meillo@123	3816 Each tools has a source file with the same name.
meillo@122	3817 For example,
meillo@122	3818 .Pn rmm
meillo@122	3819 is built from
meillo@122	3820 .Fn uip/rmm.c .
meillo@123	3821 Some source files are used for multiple programs.
meillo@122	3822 For example
meillo@122	3823 .Fn uip/scansbr.c
meillo@123	3824 is used for both,
meillo@122	3825 .Pn scan
meillo@122	3826 and
meillo@122	3827 .Pn inc .
meillo@122	3828 In nmh, 49 tools were built from 76 source files.
meillo@123	3829 This is a ratio of 1.6 source files per program.
meillo@123	3830 32 programs depended on multiple source files;
meillo@123	3831 17 programs depended on one source file only.
meillo@122	3832 In mmh, 39 tools are built from 51 source files.
meillo@123	3833 This is a ratio of 1.3 source files per program.
meillo@123	3834 18 programs depend on multiple source files;
meillo@123	3835 21 programs depend on one source file only.
meillo@123	3836 (These numbers and the ones in the following text ignore the MH library
meillo@123	3837 as well as shell scripts and multiple names for the same program.)
meillo@122	3838 .P
meillo@123	3839 Splitting the source code of a large program into multiple files can
meillo@122	3840 increase the readability of its source code.
meillo@124	3841 Most of the mmh tools, however, are simple and straight-forward programs.
meillo@122	3842 With the exception of the MIME handling tools,
meillo@122	3843 .Pn pick
meillo@122	3844 is the largest tools.
meillo@122	3845 It contains 1\\|037 lines of source code (measured with
meillo@122	3846 .Pn sloccount ), excluding the MH library.
meillo@122	3847 Only the MIME handling tools (\c
meillo@122	3848 .Pn mhbuild ,
meillo@122	3849 .Pn mhstore ,
meillo@122	3850 .Pn show ,
meillo@122	3851 etc.)
meillo@122	3852 are larger.
meillo@122	3853 Splitting programs with less than 1\\|000 lines of code into multiple
meillo@123	3854 source files seldom leads to better readability.
meillo@123	3855 For such tools, splitting makes sense
meillo@122	3856 when parts of the code are reused in other programs,
meillo@122	3857 and the reused code fragment is not general enough
meillo@122	3858 for including it in the MH library,
meillo@124	3859 or, if the code has dependencies on a library that only few programs need.
meillo@122	3860 .Fn uip/packsbr.c ,
meillo@122	3861 for instance, provides the core program logic for the
meillo@122	3862 .Pn packf
meillo@122	3863 and
meillo@122	3864 .Pn rcvpack
meillo@122	3865 programs.
meillo@122	3866 .Fn uip/packf.c
meillo@122	3867 and
meillo@122	3868 .Fn uip/rcvpack.c
meillo@122	3869 mainly wrap the core function appropriately.
meillo@122	3870 No other tools use the folder packing functions.
meillo@123	3871 As another example,
meillo@123	3872 .Fn uip/termsbr.c
meillo@123	3873 provides termcap support, which requires linking with a termcap or
meillo@123	3874 curses library.
meillo@123	3875 Including
meillo@123	3876 .Fn uip/termsbr.c
meillo@123	3877 into the MH library would require every program to be linked with
meillo@123	3878 termcap or curses, although only few of the programs require it.
meillo@122	3879 .P
meillo@122	3880 The task of MIME handling is complex enough that splitting its code
meillo@122	3881 into multiple source files improves the readability.
meillo@122	3882 The program
meillo@122	3883 .Pn mhstore ,
meillo@122	3884 for instance, is compiled out of seven source files with 2\\|500
meillo@122	3885 lines of code in summary.
meillo@122	3886 The main code file
meillo@122	3887 .Fn uip/mhstore.c
meillo@123	3888 consists of 800 lines; the other 1\\|700 lines of code are reused in
meillo@123	3889 other MIME handling tools.
meillo@123	3890 It seems to be worthwhile to bundle the generic MIME handling code into
meillo@123	3891 a MH-MIME library, as a companion to the MH standard library.
meillo@122	3892 This is left open for the future.
meillo@122	3893 .P
meillo@123	3894 The work already done, focussed on the non-MIME tools.
meillo@122	3895 The amount of code compiled into each program was reduced.
meillo@123	3896 This eases the understanding of the code base.
meillo@122	3897 In nmh,
meillo@122	3898 .Pn comp
meillo@122	3899 was built from six source files:
meillo@122	3900 .Fn comp.c ,
meillo@122	3901 .Fn whatnowproc.c ,
meillo@122	3902 .Fn whatnowsbr.c ,
meillo@122	3903 .Fn sendsbr.c ,
meillo@122	3904 .Fn annosbr.c ,
meillo@122	3905 and
meillo@122	3906 .Fn distsbr.c .
meillo@122	3907 In mmh, it builds from only two:
meillo@122	3908 .Fn comp.c
meillo@122	3909 and
meillo@122	3910 .Fn whatnowproc.c .
meillo@123	3911 In nmh's
meillo@123	3912 .Pn comp ,
meillo@123	3913 the core function of
meillo@122	3914 .Pn whatnow ,
meillo@122	3915 .Pn send ,
meillo@122	3916 and
meillo@122	3917 .Pn anno
meillo@123	3918 were compiled into
meillo@122	3919 .Pn comp .
meillo@123	3920 This saved the need to execute these programs with
meillo@122	3921 .Fu fork()
meillo@122	3922 and
meillo@122	3923 .Fu exec() ,
meillo@122	3924 two expensive system calls.
meillo@122	3925 Whereis this approach improved the time performance,
meillo@122	3926 it interweaved the source code.
meillo@122	3927 Core functionalities were not encapsulated into programs but into
meillo@122	3928 function, which were then wrapped by programs.
meillo@122	3929 For example,
meillo@122	3930 .Fn uip/annosbr.c
meillo@122	3931 included the function
meillo@122	3932 .Fu annotate() .
meillo@122	3933 Each program that wanted to annotate messages, included the source file
meillo@123	3934 .Fn uip/annosbr.c
meillo@123	3935 and called
meillo@123	3936 .Fu annotate() .
meillo@123	3937 Because the function
meillo@123	3938 .Fu annotate()
meillo@123	3939 was used like the tool
meillo@123	3940 .Pn anno ,
meillo@123	3941 it had seven parameters, reflecting the command line switches of the tool.
meillo@122	3942 When another pair of command line switches was added to
meillo@122	3943 .Pn anno ,
meillo@122	3944 a rather ugly hack was implemented to avoid adding another parameter
meillo@122	3945 to the function.
meillo@122	3946 .Ci d9b1d57351d104d7ec1a5621f090657dcce8cb7f
meillo@122	3947 .P
meillo@122	3948 Separation simplifies the understanding of program code
meillo@122	3949 because the area influenced by any particular statement is smaller.
meillo@122	3950 The separating on the program-level is more strict than the separation
meillo@122	3951 on the function level.
meillo@122	3952 In mmh, the relevant code of
meillo@122	3953 .Pn comp
meillo@122	3954 comprises the two files
meillo@122	3955 .Fn uip/comp.c
meillo@122	3956 and
meillo@122	3957 .Fn uip/whatnowproc.c ,
meillo@123	3958 together 210 lines of code.
meillo@122	3959 In nmh,
meillo@122	3960 .Pn comp
meillo@122	3961 comprises six files with 2\\|450 lines.
meillo@123	3962 Not all of the code in these six files was actually used by
meillo@122	3963 .Pn comp ,
meillo@123	3964 but the code reader needed to read all of the code first to know which
meillo@123	3965 parts were used.
meillo@122	3966 .P
meillo@123	3967 As I have read a lot in the code base during the last two years,
meillo@123	3968 I learned about the easy and the difficult parts.
meillo@123	3969 Code is easy to understand if:
meillo@123	3970 .BU
meillo@139	3971 The influenced code area is small.
meillo@123	3972 .BU
meillo@139	3973 The boundaries are strictly defined.
meillo@123	3974 .BU
meillo@139	3975 The code is written straight-forward.
meillo@123	3976 .P
meillo@123	3977 .\" XXX move this paragraph somewhere else?
meillo@123	3978 Reading
meillo@122	3979 .Pn rmm 's
meillo@122	3980 source code in
meillo@122	3981 .Fn uip/rmm.c
meillo@122	3982 is my recommendation for a beginner's entry point into the code base of nmh.
meillo@122	3983 The reasons are that the task of
meillo@122	3984 .Pn rmm
meillo@122	3985 is straight forward and it consists of one small source code file only,
meillo@122	3986 yet its source includes code constructs typical for MH tools.
meillo@122	3987 With the introduction of the trash folder in mmh,
meillo@122	3988 .Pn rmm
meillo@122	3989 became a bit more complex, because it invokes
meillo@122	3990 .Pn refile .
meillo@122	3991 Still, it is a good example for a simple tool with clear sources.
meillo@122	3992 .P
meillo@122	3993 Understanding
meillo@122	3994 .Pn comp
meillo@122	3995 requires to read 210 lines of code in mmh, but ten times as much in nmh.
meillo@123	3996 Due to the aforementioned hack in
meillo@122	3997 .Pn anno
meillo@122	3998 to save the additional parameter, information passed through the program's
meillo@122	3999 source base in obscure ways.
meillo@123	4000 Thus, understanding
meillo@122	4001 .Pn comp ,
meillo@123	4002 required understanding the inner workings of
meillo@122	4003 .Fn uip/annosbr.c
meillo@122	4004 first.
meillo@123	4005 To be sure to fully understand a program, its whole source code needs
meillo@122	4006 to be examined.
meillo@123	4007 Not doing so is a leap of faith, assuming that the developers
meillo@122	4008 have avoided obscure programming techniques.
meillo@122	4009 By separating the tools on the program-level, the boundaries are
meillo@122	4010 clearly visible and technically enforced.
meillo@122	4011 The interfaces are calls to
meillo@122	4012 .Fu exec()
meillo@122	4013 rather than arbitrary function calls.
meillo@123	4014 .P
meillo@123	4015 But the real problem is another:
meillo@123	4016 Nmh violates the golden ``one tool, one job'' rule of the Unix philosophy.
meillo@123	4017 Understanding
meillo@122	4018 .Pn comp
meillo@123	4019 requires understanding
meillo@123	4020 .Fn uip/annosbr.c
meillo@123	4021 and
meillo@123	4022 .Fn uip/sendsbr.c
meillo@123	4023 because
meillo@123	4024 .Pn comp
meillo@123	4025 does annotate and send messages.
meillo@123	4026 In nmh, there surely exists the tool
meillo@122	4027 .Pn send ,
meillo@123	4028 which does (almost) only send messages.
meillo@123	4029 But
meillo@122	4030 .Pn comp
meillo@123	4031 and
meillo@122	4032 .Pn repl
meillo@122	4033 and
meillo@122	4034 .Pn forw
meillo@122	4035 and
meillo@122	4036 .Pn dist
meillo@122	4037 and
meillo@122	4038 .Pn whatnow
meillo@122	4039 and
meillo@123	4040 .Pn viamail ,
meillo@123	4041 they all (!) have the same message sending function included, too.
meillo@123	4042 In result,
meillo@123	4043 .Pn comp
meillo@123	4044 sends messages without using
meillo@123	4045 .Pn send .
meillo@123	4046 The situation is the same as if
meillo@123	4047 .Pn grep
meillo@123	4048 would page without
meillo@123	4049 .Pn more
meillo@123	4050 just because both programs are part of the same code base.
meillo@123	4051 .P
meillo@122	4052 The clear separation on the surface \(en the toolchest approach \(en
meillo@123	4053 is violated on the level below.
meillo@122	4054 This violation is for the sake of time performance.
meillo@122	4055 On systems where
meillo@122	4056 .Fu fork()
meillo@122	4057 and
meillo@122	4058 .Fu exec()
meillo@122	4059 are expensive, the quicker response might be noticable.
meillo@124	4060 In the old times, sacrificing readability and conceptional beauty for
meillo@124	4061 speed might even have been a must to prevent MH from being unusably slow.
meillo@122	4062 Whatever the reasons had been, today they are gone.
meillo@123	4063 No longer should we sacrifice readability or conceptional beauty.
meillo@122	4064 No longer should we violate the Unix philosophy's ``one tool, one job''
meillo@122	4065 guideline.
meillo@123	4066 No longer should we keep speed improvements that became unnecessary.
meillo@122	4067 .P
meillo@123	4068 Therefore, mmh's
meillo@123	4069 .Pn comp
meillo@123	4070 does no longer send messages.
meillo@123	4071 In mmh, different jobs are divided among separate programs that
meillo@122	4072 invoke each other as needed.
meillo@123	4073 In consequence,
meillo@123	4074 .Pn comp
meillo@123	4075 invokes
meillo@123	4076 .Pn whatnow
meillo@123	4077 which thereafter invokes
meillo@123	4078 .Pn send .
meillo@123	4079 The clear separation on the surface is maintained on the level below.
meillo@123	4080 Human users and the tools use the same interface \(en
meillo@123	4081 annotations, for example, are made by invoking
meillo@123	4082 .Pn anno ,
meillo@123	4083 no matter if requested by programs or by human beings.
meillo@123	4084 The decrease of tools built from multiple source files and thus
meillo@123	4085 the decrease of
meillo@123	4086 .Fn uip/*sbr.c
meillo@123	4087 files confirm the improvement.
meillo@123	4088 .P
meillo@145	4089 .\" XXX move this paragraph up somewhere
meillo@123	4090 One disadvantage needs to be taken with this change:
meillo@123	4091 The compiler can no longer check the integrity of the interfaces.
meillo@123	4092 By changing the command line interfaces of tools, it is
meillo@123	4093 the developer's job to adjust the invocations of these tools as well.
meillo@123	4094 As this is a manual task and regression tests, which could detect such
meillo@124	4095 problems, are not available yet, it is prone to errors.
meillo@123	4096 These errors will not be detected at compile time but at run time.
meillo@123	4097 Installing regression tests is a task left to do.
meillo@123	4098 In the best case, a uniform way of invoking tools from other tools
meillo@123	4099 can be developed to allow automated testing at compile time.
meillo@145	4100
meillo@145	4101
meillo@145	4102 .ig
meillo@145	4103 XXX consider writing about mhl vs. mhlproc
meillo@145	4104
meillo@145	4105 sbr/showfile.c
meillo@145	4106
meillo@145	4107 23 /*
meillo@145	4108 24 ** If you have your lproc listed as "mhl",
meillo@145	4109 25 ** then really invoked the mhlproc instead
meillo@145	4110 26 ** (which is usually mhl anyway).
meillo@145	4111 27 */
meillo@145	4112
meillo@145	4113 Sat Nov 24 19:09:14 1984 /mtr (agent: Marshall Rose) <uci@udel-dewey>
meillo@145	4114
meillo@145	4115 sbr/showfile.c: if lproc is "mhl", use mhlproc for consistency
meillo@145	4116 (Actually, user should use "lproc: show", "showproc: mhl".)
meillo@145	4117 ..