RCVPACK(1mh)

📦
version 1.8 · 4 versions
, in debian trixie, ubuntu noble, ubuntu questing, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

💌 RCVPACK — the manual, but make it cute

okay bestie, gather round, because we're talking about rcvpack from the nmh family (that's the manual page RCVPACK(1mh), mwah 💅). it's a tiny little utility and honestly? it eats. let's get into it.

✨ NAME ✨

rcvpack — append an email from standard input to a file 🎀

like, that's it. that's the whole job. she takes what you pipe in and tacks it onto the end of a file. iconic behaviour, no notes.

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

/usr/lib/mh/rcvpack [-help] [-version] file [-mbox] [-mmdf]

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

so here's the vibe: rcvpack appends a copy of a message to the file you name on its command line. you hand her a message on standard input, she parks a copy at the end of that file. simple, clean, slay. ✨

now, the format question, because there are two ways she can separate messages in that file:

  • if you give the -mbox switch — and this is the default, so if you say nothing you get this — messages get separated by mbox (uucp) style delimiters. this is the format most mail clients use, like elm, mailx, etc. so it's giving "universally understood, main character energy" 🫶
  • alternatively, if you hand her the -mmdf switch, messages get separated by mmdf style delimiters — and that means each message is separated by four CTRL-A's and a newline. yes, four. that's not a typo, that's the format. 💀

and here's the part that's lowkey the most impressive: rcvpack will correctly lock and unlock the file so that access gets serialized when you're running multiple copies of rcvpack at the same time. no race conditions, no corrupted file, no chaos. she's organized. she's responsible. she's the friend who actually makes the group dinner reservation. 👑

one more thing though, and I gotta be honest with you bestie: in general, rcvpack has been rendered obsolete by the file action of slocal. so like... she's a legacy queen. but she may still have some use in shell scripts! so don't write her off entirely. 🦋

🍓 FILES 🍓

  • /etc/nmh/mts.conf — the nmh mts configuration file 📁

⭐ SEE ALSO ⭐

go read her sisters and cousins, they're all serving:

🙈 BUGS 🙈

okay so, the tea: only two return codes are meaningful, others should be. that's it, that's the bug note. she's a little mysterious about her exit statuses. we don't know which two. we just live with it. 💀

🎀 cute little sign-off 🎀

this page is from nmh-1.8, dated 1999-04-30 — yes, she's an elder, but she still locks her files properly, so respect her. go append something to something, bestie. iykyk. 💖✨🦋

📦 where this page comes from