1PICK(1)                     General Commands Manual                    PICK(1)
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NAME

6       pick - search nmh messages
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SYNOPSIS

9       pick [-help] [-version] [+folder] [msgs] [-reverse ...]  [-and ...]
10            [-or ...]  [-not ...]  [-lbrace ...  -rbrace] [--component pat‐
11            tern] [-cc pattern] [-date pattern] [-from pattern] [-search pat‐
12            tern] [-subject pattern] [-to pattern] [-after date] [-before
13            date] [-datefield field] [-sequence name ...]  [-nosequence]
14            [-public | -nopublic] [-zero | -nozero] [-list | -nolist] [-debug]
15
16       typical usage:
17
18            scan `pick -from jones`
19            pick -to holloway -sequence select
20            show `pick -before friday`
21

DESCRIPTION

23       pick searches within a folder for messages with the specified contents,
24       and then identifies those messages.  Two types of search primitives are
25       available: pattern matching and date constraint operations.
26
27       A modified grep(1) is used to perform the matching, so the full regular
28       expression  (see  ed(1))  facility  is  available within pattern.  With
29       -search, pattern is used directly, and with the others, the  grep  pat‐
30       tern constructed is:
31
32            `component[ \t]*:.*pattern'
33
34       This  means  that the pattern specified for a -search will be found ev‐
35       erywhere in the message, including the header and the body,  while  the
36       other  pattern  matching  requests  are limited to the single specified
37       component.  The expression
38
39            `--component pattern'
40
41       is a shorthand for specifying
42
43            `-search “component[ \t]*:.*pattern” '
44
45       It is used to pick a component  which  is  not  one  of  “To:”,  “cc:”,
46       “Date:”, “From:”, or “Subject:”.  An example is “pick --reply-to pooh”.
47
48       Pattern  matching  is performed on a per-line basis.  Within the header
49       of the message, each component is treated as one long line, but in  the
50       body,  each line is separate.  Lower-case letters in the search pattern
51       will match either lower or upper case in the message, while upper  case
52       will match only upper case.
53
54       Note  that  since  the -date switch is a pattern matching operation (as
55       described above), to find messages sent on a certain date  the  pattern
56       string must match the text of the “Date:” field of the message.
57
58       Independent  of any pattern matching operations requested, the switches
59       -after date or -before date may also be  used  to  introduce  date/time
60       constraints  on  all of the messages.  By default, the “Date:” field is
61       consulted, but if another date-yielding field (such as “BB-Posted:”  or
62       “Delivery-Date:”)  should  be  used, the -datefield field switch may be
63       used.
64
65       With -before and -after, pick will actually parse the  date  fields  in
66       each  of  the  messages  specified  in  `msgs'  and compare them to the
67       date/time specified.  If -after is  given,  then  only  those  messages
68       whose  “Date:”  field value is chronologically after the date specified
69       will be considered.  The -before switch specifies the complementary ac‐
70       tion.
71
72       Both  the  -after  and  -before  switches take legal RFC 822-style date
73       specifications as arguments.  pick will default certain missing  fields
74       so  that  the  entire date need not be specified.  These fields are (in
75       order of defaulting): timezone, time and timezone, date, date and time‐
76       zone.   All  defaults  are taken from the current date, time, and time‐
77       zone.
78
79       In addition to RFC 822-style dates, pick will also recognize any of the
80       days of the week (“sunday”, “monday”, and so on), and the special dates
81       “today”, “yesterday” (24 hours ago),  and  “tomorrow”  (24  hours  from
82       now).   All  days  of the week are judged to refer to a day in the past
83       (e.g., telling pick “saturday” on a “tuesday” means “last saturday” not
84       “this saturday”).
85
86       Finally,  in  addition  to these special specifications, pick will also
87       honor a specification of the form “-dd”, which means “dd days ago”.
88
89       Use the -reverse switch to make pick find matching messages in  reverse
90       order,  working  from  the  highest  message number down to the lowest.
91       This can be useful in searching for recent messages in  large  folders,
92       for example,
93
94            pick -reverse -from frated | xargs -n1 scan
95
96       pick  supports  complex  boolean operations on the searching primitives
97       with the -and, -or, -not, and -lbrace ...  -rbrace switches.  For exam‐
98       ple,
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100            pick -after yesterday -and
101                 -lbrace -from freida -or -from fear -rbrace
102
103       identifies messages recently sent by “frieda” or “fear”.
104
105       The  matching primitives take precedence over the -not switch, which in
106       turn takes precedence over -and which in  turn  takes  precedence  over
107       -or.   To  override  the  default  precedence,  the -lbrace and -rbrace
108       switches are provided, which act just like opening and  closing  paren‐
109       theses in logical expressions.
110
111       If no search criteria are given, all the messages specified on the com‐
112       mand line are selected (this defaults to “all”).
113
114       Once the search has been performed, if the -list switch is  given,  the
115       message  numbers  of  the selected messages are written to the standard
116       output separated by newlines.  This is  extremely  useful  for  quickly
117       generating  arguments for other nmh programs by using the “backquoting”
118       syntax of the shell.  For example, the command
119
120            scan `pick +todo -after “31 Mar 83 0123 PST”`
121
122       says to scan those messages in the indicated folder which meet the  ap‐
123       propriate  criterion.  Note that since pick's context changes are writ‐
124       ten out prior to scan's invocation, you need not give the folder  argu‐
125       ment to scan as well.
126
127       The  -sequence name switch may be given once for each sequence the user
128       wishes to define.  For each sequence named, that sequence will  be  de‐
129       fined to mean exactly those messages selected by pick.  For example,
130
131            pick -from frated -seq fred
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133       defines  a  new  message  sequence for the current folder called “fred”
134       which contains exactly those messages that were selected.
135
136       The -nosequence switch will disable all previously named sequences, al‐
137       lowing those established by a profile component to be overridden.
138
139       By  default,  pick  will zero a sequence before adding it.  This action
140       can be disabled with the -nozero switch, which means that the  messages
141       selected  by  pick will be added to the sequence, if it already exists,
142       and any messages already a part of that sequence will remain so.
143
144       The -public and -nopublic switches are used by pick  in  the  same  way
145       mark uses them.
146
147       The  -debug switch causes pick to output a representation of the search
148       pattern.
149
150   Output when no messages are matched
151       If pick is used in a backquoted operation, such as
152
153            scan `pick -from jones`
154
155       and pick selects no messages (e.g., no messages are from “jones”), then
156       the shell will still run the outer command (e.g., scan).  Since no mes‐
157       sages were matched, pick produced no output, and the argument given  to
158       the  outer  command  as  a result of backquoting pick is empty.  In the
159       case of nmh programs, the outer command now  acts  as  if  the  default
160       `msg'  or  `msgs' should be used (e.g., “all” in the case of scan).  To
161       prevent this unexpected behavior, if -list was given, and if its  stan‐
162       dard  output is not a tty, then pick outputs the illegal message number
163       “0” when it fails.  This lets the  outer  command  fail  gracefully  as
164       well.
165

FILES

167       $HOME/.mh_profile          The user profile
168

PROFILE COMPONENTS

170       Path:                To determine the user's nmh directory
171       Current-Folder:      To find the default current folder
172

SEE ALSO

174       mark(1)
175

DEFAULTS

177       `+folder' defaults to the current folder
178       `msgs' defaults to all
179       `-datefield date'
180       `-zero'
181       `-list' is the default if no `-sequence', `-nolist' otherwise
182

CONTEXT

184       If a folder is given, it will become the current folder.
185

HISTORY

187       In  previous  versions of MH, the pick command would show, scan, or re‐
188       file the selected messages.  This was rather “inverted logic” from  the
189       Unix  point of view, so pick was changed to define sequences and output
190       those sequences.  Hence, pick can be used to generate the arguments for
191       all  other MH commands, instead of giving pick endless switches for in‐
192       voking those commands itself.
193
194       Also, previous versions of pick balked if you didn't specify  a  search
195       string  or  a  date/time constraint.  The current version does not, and
196       merely matches the messages you specify.  This lets you type  something
197       like:
198
199            show `pick last:20 -seq fear`
200
201       instead of typing
202
203            mark -add -nozero -seq fear last:20
204            show fear
205
206       Finally, timezones used to be ignored when comparing dates: they aren't
207       any more.
208

HELPFUL HINTS

210       Use “pick sequence -list” to enumerate the messages in a sequence (such
211       as for use by a shell script).
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BUGS

214       Any  occurrence of -datefield must occur prior to the -after or -before
215       switch it applies to.
216
217       The pattern syntax “[l-r]” is not supported; each letter to be  matched
218       must be included within the square brackets.
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222nmh-1.8                           2016-03-12                           PICK(1)
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