Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!mordor!ziegast
From: ziegast@mordor ("Eric W. Ziegast")
Newsgroups: comp.mail.mh
Subject: Using the %(friendly{}) format
Message-ID: <9003192327.AA07968@abyss.eng.umd.edu>
Date: 19 Mar 90 18:27:28 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 128

One of the standard features of UCB Mail is that it puts the
"friendly" headers in the message. Most of us normally don't
see these friendly headers in our scan listings because the
MH procedures were compiled with the BERK option which disables
address format parsing [see mh-format(5)].

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First what does the friendly format do?
On the commands that use it, it turns these:

a)	ziegast@mordor.eng.umd.edu (Eric W. Ziegast)
b)	ziegast@mordor.eng.umd.edu
c)	"Eric W. Ziegast" <ziegast@mordor.eng.umd.edu>

into these:

a)	Eric W. Ziegast
b)	ziegast@mordor.eng.umd.edu
c)	"Eric W. Ziegast"

On two different machines here, I've compiled one without
BERK and one with it. The MH command "scan" uses friendly
format. Here are two scan listing for the same files:

With BERK:
30  03/12 eru!luth!sunic!mc  Re: .forward,.maildelivery .. help<<mehra@s
31  03/12 gvlv2!gvlv1!kleon  Re: mh6.6/papers/*<<In article <9003080541.
32  03/12 appenzell.cs.wisc  Re: Please help. I need an old patch...<<In
33  03/12 accur8!sisrael@uu  PC version of MH<<Is there a PC version of 
34  03/12 sgi!roberts%nimro  Re: repl address formatting<<In article <90

Without BERK:
30  03/12 Henk Fictorie      Re: .forward,.maildelivery .. help<<mehra@s
31  03/12 Ken Leonard        Re: mh6.6/papers/*<<In article <9003080541.
32  03/12 Tim Theisen        Re: Please help. I need an old patch...<<In
33  03/12 Stephen Israel     PC version of MH<<Is there a PC version of 
34  03/12 roberts            Re: repl address formatting<<In article <90

Since friendly works without BERK, the second looks "friendlier".

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In order to have friendly formatting work for your addresses you have
to send your messages with the extra information that friendly format-
ing uses. For example, the next line in my mh mailbox (BERK off) is:

35  03/12 ziegast@mordor.en  Re: PS-papers<<I write: >I ftp'ed compresse

This is because I sent the mail with the following (default) header:

	To: ziegast@mordor.eng.umd.edu
	Cc: mh-users@ICS.UCI.EDU
	Subject: Re: PS-papers 
	In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 08 Mar 90 17:28:01 -0500.
	             <9003082228.AA14598@mordor.eng.umd.edu> 
	Date: Mon, 12 Mar 90 23:48:15 -0500

As the mail was sent, the following lines were added to the header:

	From ziegast@mordor.eng.umd.edu  Mon Mar 12 23:48:17 1990
	Return-Path: <ziegast@mordor.eng.umd.edu>
		id AA27348; Mon, 12 Mar 90 23:48:17 EST
	Message-Id: <9003130448.AA27348@mordor.eng.umd.edu>
	............. My header ............................
	From: ziegast@mordor.eng.umd.edu
                                          ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
                                     Missing friendly information

If I force the line:

	From: ziegast@mordor.eng.umd.edu (Eric W. Ziegast)

into my header, the processed header becomes:

	From ziegast@mordor.eng.umd.edu  Mon Mar 12 23:48:17 1990
	Return-Path: <ziegast@mordor.eng.umd.edu>
		id AA27348; Mon, 12 Mar 90 23:48:17 EST
	Message-Id: <9003130448.AA27348@mordor.eng.umd.edu>
	To: ziegast@mordor.eng.umd.edu
	Cc: mh-users@ICS.UCI.EDU
	Subject: Re: PS-papers 
	In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 08 Mar 90 17:28:01 -0500.
	             <9003082228.AA14598@mordor.eng.umd.edu> 
	Date: Mon, 12 Mar 90 23:48:15 -0500
	From: ziegast@mordor.eng.umd.edu (Eric W. Ziegast)
                                         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
                                           Friendly info

and the scan line becomes:

35  03/12 Eric W. Ziegast    Re: PS-papers<<I write: >I ftp'ed compresse

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In order to make it easier for me when composing messages to include
the friendly from line, I have the following "components" file in my
MH directory:

	From: ziegast@mordor.eng.umd.edu (Eric W. Ziegast)
	To:
	cc:
	Subject:
	--------

Now, every time I "comp" a new message, I have a "friendly" from line,
just like UCB Mail creates.

Such "From:" line additions can be added to replcomps, forwcomps, and
others as well.

Question for the MH experts: Is there an easier way to do this?

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I hope that I've helped some people by showing this "trick" (not really,
I just read and reread the man pages) and hope that many will stop
using the friendly formats. (Down with BERK !  :-)

Also, if anyone knows specifically what the DUMB option really does and
why or why someone should/shouldn't use it, I'd like to hear about it.

Eric Ziegast
University of Maryland
Electrical Engineering
Open Sun Lab

PS: Wouldn't it be great if we had more people show the tricks of MH
    programming? I also have a more general mail filter that is more
    liberal than mhook. In it you can do all sorts of things with shell
    script programming to determine which folder a message goes into.