REFILE(1)

💌 REFILE(1) — the refile girlies' guide 💌

okay bestie, welcome to refile from the General Commands Manual, and no this is not the boring version, we're doing this together 💖

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✨ NAME ✨

refile — file message in nmh folders 🗂️✨

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

refile [-help] [-version] [msgs] [-draft] [-link | -nolink] [-preserve |
     -nopreserve] [-retainsequences | -noretainsequences] [-unlink |
     -nounlink] [-src +folder] [-file file] [-rmmproc program]
     [-normmproc] +folder1 ...

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

okay so the whole vibe of refile is: it moves messages (that's mv(1), iykyk) or links them (that's ln(1)) out of a source folder and into one or more destination folders. she's a relocator 💅

Think of a message like a single sheet of paper, and this operation is literally you filing that sheet (or copies of it) into the little folders inside a file cabinet. iconic, honestly. When a message gets filed, it gets linked into the destination folder(s) if that's possible, and copied otherwise. And here's the slay: as long as all your destination folders live on the same file system, filing a message multiple times costs you basically no extra storage overhead. little-to-no storage overhead, fr fr 🫶

That makes this a genuinely great way to cross-file or multiple-index your messages. example time:

if a message shows up from Jones about the ARPA Map Project, this command

refile cur +jones +Map

means you can find that message in either of the two folders jones or Map. two homes, one message, main character energy 👑

You can tell her where the source folder is with -src +folder. If you don't, she just uses the current folder by default. And if you don't specify any message at all? Then cur is used by default. easy 💖

The -file file option directs refile to use the specified file as the source message to be filed, instead of a message from a folder. ⚠️ heads up though: that file should be a validly formatted message, just like any other nmh message. It should not be in mail drop format. (If you need to convert a file in mail drop format into a folder of nmh messages, that's what inc(1) is for, bestie.)

If a destination folder doesn't exist, refile will ask you if you want to create it. A negative response aborts the file operation, periodt. And here's the lowkey important bit: if the standard input for refile is not a tty, then refile won't ask you anything at all — she just proceeds as if the user answered “yes” to all the questions. so if you're scripting this, she is not going to wait around for your opinion 🙈

The -link option preserves the source folder copy of the message (that means it does an ln(1) instead of a mv(1)), whereas -nolink (which is the default) deletes the filed messages from the source folder. choose your fighter 💅

Normally, when a message is refiled, for each destination folder it gets assigned the number that's one above the current highest message number in that folder. Use the -preserve switch to override that message renaming and try to preserve the number of the message. But if a conflict for a particular folder happens while you're using -preserve, then refile will use the next available message number which is above the message number you wished to preserve. no cap, that's the fallback 🌸

Message sequences are folder-specific (they belong to their folder, they don't travel), so moving the message out of the source folder removes it from all of its sequences in that folder. -retainsequences adds it to those same sequences in the destination folder, and creates any of those sequences that don't already exist. one exception though: this adding does not apply for the “cur” sequence.

If -link is not specified (or if -nolink is specified), the filed messages will be removed from the source folder. The default is to remove these messages by renaming them with a site-dependent prefix (usually a comma). Such files will then need to be removed in some manner after a certain amount of time. Many sites arrange for cron to remove these files once a day, so check with your system administrator 🧚

Alternately, if you want refile to really remove the files representing these messages from the source folder, you can use the -unlink switch — and do not confuse -unlink with the -link switch, they are not the same thing and the vibes are very different. 😭 But listen: messages removed by this method cannot be later recovered. gone means gone. that's a permanent deletion, bestie 💀

If you prefer a more sophisticated method of removing the messages from the source folder, you can define the rmmproc profile component. For example, you can add a profile component such as

rmmproc:    /home/coleman/bin/rmm_msgs

and then refile will instead call the named program or script to handle the message files. cute, delegating 💖

You may specify -rmmproc program on the command line to override this profile specification. And the -normmproc option forces the message files to be deleted by renaming or unlinking them as described above.

The -draft switch tells refile to file the <mh-dir>/draft. yes, that one. 🎀

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✨ FILES ✨

• $HOME/.mh_profile — the user profile 💖

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✨ PROFILE COMPONENTS ✨

• Path: — to determine the user's nmh directory
• Current-Folder: — to find the default current folder
• Folder-Protect: — to set mode when creating a new folder
• rmmproc: — program to delete the message

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✨ SEE ALSO ✨

folder(1), mh-sequence(5), rmf(1), rmm(1) 🦋

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✨ DEFAULTS ✨

• `-src +folder' defaults to the current folder
• `msgs' defaults to cur
• `-nolink'
• `-nounlink'
• `-nopreserve'
• `-noretainsequences'

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✨ CONTEXT ✨

If -src +folder is given, it will become the current folder. If neither -link nor all is specified, the current message in the source folder will be set to the last message specified; otherwise, the current message won't be changed. 🌈

If the “Previous-Sequence” profile entry is set, then in addition to defining the named sequences from the source folder, refile will also define those sequences for the destination folders. See mh-sequence(5) for information concerning the previous sequence.

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✨ BUGS ✨

Since refile and rmm use your rmmproc to delete the message, the rmmproc must not call refile or rmm without specifying -normmproc, or you will create an infinite loop. 💀🔁 infinite loop. do not do this. periodt.

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and that's the whole page, bestie 🫶 this was nmh-1.8, dated 2013-03-19, and honestly? she ate. go file some messages 💖✨🎀