FLIST(1)

🌸 FLIST — the manual, but make it bestie 🌸

okay so this is the manual page for flist and flists (that's the flist(1) section 1, General Commands Manual vibe) — they list how many nmh messages live in given sequences. it's giving "let me count ur mail for u" and honestly? iconic. 💖

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✨ NAME ✨

flist, flists — list the number of nmh messages in given sequences 🦋

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

flist [-help] [-version] [+folder1 [+folder2 ...]]  [-sequence name1
     [-sequence name2 ...]]  [-all | -noall] [-showzero | -noshowzero]
     [-recurse | -norecurse] [-fast | -nofast] [-alpha | -noalpha]

flists is equivalent to flist -all

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so basically, flist is the girl who goes through a whole list of folders and tells you how many messages in them belong to a given sequence or set of sequences — think the “unseen” sequence, yk? 💅 this is especially the move if you're out here using something like slocal or procmail (typically with rcvstore in the mix) to pre-sort your mail into different folders before you even look at it. queen behavior, honestly.

by default, flist will search the current folder for the given sequence or sequences (usually “unseen”). but if you pass one or more folders on the command line with +folder — yes, multiple is allowed, live ur truth — then all those folders get searched for the given sequence(s). and for each folder it searches, flist will show you the number of messages in each of the specified sequences, plus the total number of messages. receipts on receipts. 🧾✨

the -sequence switch specifies the sequence that messages should belong to. you can give this switch multiple times to specify multiple sequences. if you don't give it, the default is to search for all the sequences specified by the “Unseen-Sequence” profile component. for more deets about sequences, go read mh-sequence(5). 📖

typically, flist will produce a line for each sequence, for every folder that is searched — even the folders that don't contain any messages in the given sequence. (yes bestie, it's giving over-sharer.) but if you specify -noshowzero, it'll only print those folder/sequence combos where the folder actually has a non-zero number of messages in the given sequence. filtering. we love her. 💅

if -recurse is given, then for each folder that's searched, flist will also recursively descend into those folders to search subfolders for the given sequence. it's going deeper. 🕳️🦋

if -fast is given, only the names of the folders searched will be displayed, and flist will suppress all other output. and if you use this option together with -noshowzero, then flist will only print the names of those folders searched that contain messages in at least one of the specified sequences. minimalism era. ✨

🌈 Multiple Folders 🌈

if the -all switch is given (and no folders are specified with +folder), then flist will search all the folders in the top level of the user's nmh directory. these folders are all preceded by the read-only folders, which occur as “atr-cur-” entries in the user's nmh context. okay so it's like, everyone gets a turn. 👑

an example of the output of flist -all is:

/work/Mail  has  5 in sequence unseen (private); out of  46
inbox+      has 10 in sequence unseen          ; out of 153
junklist    has  0 in sequence unseen          ; out of  63
postmaster  has  1 in sequence unseen          ; out of   3

the “+” after inbox indicates that it is the current folder. main character folder, obviously. ⭐

the “private” flag indicates that the given sequence for that folder is private. see mh-sequence(5) for details about private sequences. 🤫

if the option -all and +folder are both specified, then flist will search this folder, and all its first level subfolders for the given sequence. you may specify multiple folders in this way. go off. 💖

if flist is invoked by a name ending with “s” (e.g. flists), then the switch -all is assumed by default. sneaky little naming trick, iykyk. 🙈

the sorting order for the listing is alphabetical (with -alpha), or in a priority order defined by the “Flist-Order” profile entry (with -noalpha). each item in the “Flist-Order” is a folder name or a folder name pattern that uses * to match zero or more characters. longer matching patterns have precedence over shorter matching patterns. for example:

Flist-Order: personal petproject mh* * admin *junk

this order puts a few interesting folders first — like those with mail addressed to you personally, those about a pet project, and those about mh-related things. it places uninteresting folders at the end, and it puts everything else in the middle in alphabetical order. tier list energy, fr fr. 🏆

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✨ FILES ✨

• $HOME/.mh_profile — the user's profile. 🎀

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✨ PROFILE COMPONENTS ✨

• Path: — to determine the user's nmh directory.
• mh-sequences: — file that contains public sequences.
• Unseen-Sequence: — the name of the unseen message sequence.
• Flist-Order: — to sort folders by priority.

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✨ SEE ALSO ✨

folder(1), rcvstore(1), slocal(1), mh-sequence(5)

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✨ DEFAULTS ✨

• -sequence — the Unseen-Sequence profile entry.
• -showzero
• -noall
• -norecurse
• -noalpha
• -nofast

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✨ CONTEXT ✨

if +folder is given, it will become the current folder. if multiple folders are given, the last one specified will become the current folder. last one wins, bestie. periodt. 💅

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💀 heads up: that's the whole page, no notes skipped, no flags ghosted. every switch stayed exactly where it was. we don't do omissions here. 🫶

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and that's a wrap on this one, bestie!! 🎀💖 this page is from nmh-1.8, dated 1999-04-30, so like — vintage but still slaying, fr fr. go count ur mail, u got this. 🌸✨🦋👑