RCVSTORE(1mh)

💌 rcvstore(1mh) — the mail-slurping bestie 💌

okay so picture this: rcvstore is the girl who takes a message off standard input and asynchronously files it into an nmh folder. she's the backstage crew of your mail setup, and she eats. periodt. 🎀

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

/usr/lib/mh/rcvstore [-help] [-version] [+folder] [-create | -nocreate]
     [-unseen | -nounseen] [-zero | -nozero] [-sequence name ...]
     [-public | -nopublic]

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so like, rcvstore takes a message from standard input and incorporates it into an nmh folder. she's basically always running in tandem with mail filtering programs — think slocal and procmail — doing the whole "filter your mail into different folders" thing. the way she just sorts your life out? iconic. 💅

you can tell her which folder to use with +folder. and if you don't specify one? no stress, she'll use the folder given by a non-empty “Inbox:” entry in your profile. and if even that's not there, she'll just use the folder named “inbox”. she always has a plan B, fr fr.

if you pass -create (which is the default, bestie, she's on it) and the specified (or default) folder doesn't exist, she'll just make it. you can turn that off with -nocreate — and in that case, if the folder doesn't exist, she exits. no folder, no service. 😭

when the new message lands in the folder, it gets assigned the next highest number for that folder. simple as.

she'll incorporate anything except zero length messages into your nmh folder. and she will not change the message in any way. she's not here to edit your mail, she's here to file it. 🫶

if your profile has a “Msg-Protect: nnn” entry, that gets used as the mode (in octal!) on the newly created message. if not, the nmh default mode of 0600 is used — see chmod(1) — (on filesystems that support it, obviously). and for all subsequent operations on that message, this initially assigned mode is preserved. locked in. 🔒

okay now the sequence stuff, pay attention:

• if you give her -unseen (it's on by default, she's generous) and your profile has a non-empty “Unseen-Sequence” entry, then rcvstore adds the newly incorporated message to each sequence named by that profile entry. you can kill this with -nounseen. important: these sequences will not be zeroed by rcvstore prior to adding the new message. she does not touch them. periodt.
• and also! incoming messages can be added to additional sequences as they arrive, using the -sequence switch. just like with the commands pick and mark, you can use -zero and -nozero to say whether to zero old sequences or not. similarly, -public and -nopublic can force these sequences to be public or private. so many options, so much power. 👑

🔒 Locking and sequences 🔒

okay bestie, this part is the drama. if you use the “Unseen-Sequence” profile entry, or if you use the -sequence argument, rcvstore might try to update its sequence state while another nmh process is also trying to do so. and that? that can cause one of those updates to be lost. 💀

to avoid this — just between asynchronous invocations of rcvstore — always use it with an external locking mechanism. a procmailrc(5) local lockfile would work, or if you're not using procmail, then consider using dotlockfile(1) or flock(1). protect your sequences, protect your peace. 🧚

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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
• Folder-Protect: — to set mode when creating a new folder
• Inbox: — to find the default inbox
• Msg-Protect: — to set mode when creating a new message
• Unseen-Sequence: — to name sequences denoting unseen messages

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👀 SEE ALSO 👀

mh-sequence(5), procmailex(5), procmailrc(5), rcvdist(1), rcvpack(1), rcvtty(1)

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⭐ DEFAULTS ⭐

• +folder defaults to “Inbox” profile entry
• -create
• -unseen
• -nozero

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🌈 CONTEXT 🌈

no context changes will be attempted, with the exception of sequence manipulation. that's the only glow-up happening here. ✨

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and that's the whole vibe, bestie — this is nmh-1.8, dated 2013-02-19, and rcvstore has been quietly serving looks and filing mail since way before it was cool. she ate and left no crumbs. 💖