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mark(1) General Commands Manual mark(1) NAME mark - mark messages (only available within the message handling sys- tem, mh) SYNOPSIS mark [ +folder ] [ msgs ] [ options ] DESCRIPTION Use the mark command to assign a name to a sequence of messages within the current folder. A sequence is a number of messages that are grouped together under a name. You can then use that name with any MH command instead of a mes- sage number, to perform the command on all the messages in the se- quence. You can still continue to handle messages individually when they belong to a sequence, just as you did before. Sequences are spe- cific to a particular folder. You can use the same name for sequences in different folders without causing problems. By default, mark operates on the sequences in the current folder. You can specify another folder by using the +folder argument. When you create a sequence using mark, the ordering of messages within the folder remains unchanged. So if messages 3, 7 and 9 are put into the sequence, they are still numbered as messages 3, 7 and 9 when you use scan to list the contents of the folder. The scan command does not show you what sequences messages belong to; you must use mark to find this information. The mark command is used only to modify sequences, not messages. If you delete a message from a sequence using mark, it remains in the folder. However, when a message is deleted or moved from a folder (for example, using rmm(1) or refile(1)), it is removed from all the se- quences in that folder. FLAGS -add Adds messages to sequences. The mark command takes the mes- sages specified by the msgs argument, and adds them to the sequence named by using the -sequence name option. If no msgs argument is given, the current message is added to the sequence. This option can also be used in conjunction with the -zero option. This option cannot be used in conjunction with the -delete or -list options. If you attempt to use two or more of these options together, mark takes the last occurrence of any of them, and ignores any previous occurrences. -delete Deletes messages from sequences. The mark command removes the messages specified by the msgs argument from the named sequences. As with -add, the sequences are specified using the -sequence name option. If no msgs argument is given, the current message is removed from the named sequences. This option can also be used in conjunction with the -zero option. This option cannot be used in conjunction with the -add or -list options. If you attempt to use two or more of these options together, mark takes the last occurrence of any of them, and ignores any previous occurrences. -help Prints a list of the valid options to this command. -list Lists the sequences defined for the current folder and the messages associated with those sequences. If you wish to list only particular sequences in a folder, you can specify them by using the -sequence name option. If you do not use this option, mark lists all the sequences in the current folder. You can also list sequences in another folder by us- ing the +folder argument. This option cannot be used in conjunction with the -add or -delete options. If you attempt to use two or more of these options together, mark takes the last occurrence of any of them, and ignores any previous occurrences. The mark command automatically lists the sequences in the folder unless you use the -add or -delete options, or unless you give a msgs argument. -public -nopublic Indicates that the sequence being created should be made readable for other MH users. When you use the -add option to create a sequence, the -public option makes the sequence pub- lic, that is, readable to other MH users. By contrast, the -nopublic option indicates that the sequence should be pri- vate, or exclusive to your own MH environment. -sequence name... Specifies the sequence(s) you wish to list or modify. You use this option in conjunction with the -add, -delete, and -list options, to name the sequences you wish to add messages to, delete messages from, or list. You can name more than one sequence by listing the names with a space separating them; you do not need to repeat -sequence before each se- quence name. -zero -nozero Modifies the behavior of the -add and -delete options. If you use the -zero option with -add, all messages are re- moved from the named sequence before the new messages are added to it. This means that the sequence contains only the new messages that you have just added. The -nozero option simply adds the new messages to the existing sequence, with- out deleting any of the messages already in the sequence. This is the default behavior. If you use -zero with -delete, all of the messages in the folder are added to the named sequence, and then the messages you specify are deleted from the sequence. This means that the sequence contains all the messages in the folder except those that you have named. The -nozero option simply removes the messages you specify from the sequence, leaving the rest of the contents of the sequence intact. This is the default behavior. The defaults for this command are: +folder defaults to the current folder msgs defaults to the current message (or all messages if -list is specified) -add if a msgs argument is specified, -list otherwise -nopublic if the folder is read-only, -public otherwise -nozero RESTRICTIONS MH allows a maximum of ten sequences in any folder. The names of sequences must consist entirely of alphabetic or numeric characters, and must begin with an alphabetic character. Punctuation is not allowed. In addition, certain names are reserved for use by MH. These include first, next, prev, and cur. EXAMPLES The first example shows how mark lists all the sequences in a named folder: % mark cur: 20 Admail: 1 5 9-12 test: 3-7 This output is iden- tical to that produced by using the -list option. The next example creates a sequence called odd, containing the first five odd-numbered messages: % mark -add -sequence odd 1 3 5 7 9 % mark cur: 20 Admail: 1 5 9-12 odd: 1 3 5 7 9 test: 3-7 The next example deletes message 3 from the sequences test and odd: % mark -delete -sequence test odd 3 % mark cur: 20 Admail: 1 5 9-12 odd: 1 5 7 9 test: 4-7 The final example illustrates how the -zero option works with -add. All messages are first removed from the sequence test, and then mes- sages 1 to 3 are added. The result is that test contains only messages 1 to 3: % mark -add -zero -sequence test 1-3 % mark cur: 20 Admail: 1 5 9-12 odd: 1 5 7 9 test: 1-3 PROFILE COMPONENTS tab(+); l l. Path:+To determine your Mail directory FILES $HOME/.mh_profile The user profile. RELATED INFORMATION folder(1), pick(1), sortm(1) delim off mark(1)