show(1) 						      General Commands Manual							   show(1)

NAME

       show - show (list) messages (only available within the message handling system, mh)

SYNOPSIS

       show [+folder] [msgs] [-draft] [-[no]header] [-help] [-showproc program] [-noshowproc] [options to showproc]

OPTIONS

       Displays the draft message, or the current message in your +drafts folder, if you have one set up. You cannot give a msgs argument when you
       use this option.  Displays a one-line header before the message. The header consists of the name of the folder and the message number. This
       is the default behavior. It can be suppressed with the -noheader option.  Prints a list of the valid options to this command.  Specifies an
       alternative program to list messages. The default is to use the program defined by the showproc: entry in the file. You can give options to
       the  showproc  program  at  the command line. These are passed directly to showproc by show. (If you specify an option that has a numerical
       value, leave no space between the argument and the value. See RESTRICTIONS for more information.)

	      If the -noshowproc option is specified, /bin/cat is used instead of showproc.

	      The MH command mhl can be used as a showproc to show messages in a more uniform format. See mhl(1) for more details.

	      If you are going to use the same showproc all the time, it is advisable to specify it in	your  file.  See  mh_profile(4)  for  more
	      details.

       The defaults for this command are as follows:

       +folder defaults to the current folder msgs defaults to the current message -header

DESCRIPTION

       Use show to display the contents of the current message. You can specify alternative messages or folders by using the +folder or msgs argu-
       ments.

       If a folder is given, it becomes the current folder. The last message shown becomes the current message.

       You can specify a number of messages or a range of messages using the msgs argument. If you specify more than one message, show prompts for
       a <RETURN> prior to listing each message.

       Typically,  the	messages  are  listed exactly as they are, with no reformatting.  A program named by the showproc component in the file is
       invoked to do the listing, and any options not recognized by show are passed along to that program.  The default program is more(1).

       By default, the show command use the more program to list each message, a page at a time. When the end of the page is reached, it waits for
       a  <RETURN> or a space. If you press <RETURN>, show prints the next line. If you press the space bar, it prints the next screen of data. At
       the end of the message, show automatically returns you to the system prompt.  Press q to quit before the end of the message.

       If the profile entry Unseen-Sequence: is present and non-empty, then show will remove each of the messages shown from the  sequences  named
       by the profile entry.

RESTRICTIONS

       The  -header option does not work when msgs expands to more than one message. If the showproc is mhl, then this problem can be circumvented
       by referencing the messagename field in the mhl format file.

       The command show updates your mail environment before showing the message. Hence show may mark messages as seen	before	you  actually  see
       them.  However,	this  is  generally  not a problem, unless you are using the unseen messages mechanism, and you interrupt show while it is
       showing unseen messages.

       If you use the showproc switch to specify an alternative viewer, leave no space between the options specified with  the	viewer	and  their
       values.	For  example,  if  you	want to use the more command to scroll through messages 6 through 10 in your inbox folder, and you want to
       pause every five lines, you would enter the following command, where there is no space between the option n and the value 5: % show  +inbox
       6-10 -showproc more -n5

       If there is space between the option n and the value 5, the command interprets 5 as a message number to view.

       If your showprocviewer is mhl, then show uses a built-in mhl: it does not actually run the mhl program. Hence, if you define your own show-
       proc, do not call it mhl since show will not run it.

       If more(1) is your showproc (which is the default), then avoid running show in the background  with  only  its  standard  output  piped	to
       another process. You should re-direct the diagnostic output of show as well

       For example, in the following incorrect example, show will go into a tty input state: % show | print &

       For users of csh, the correct command is: % show |& print &

       For users of sh, the correct command is: % show 2>&1 | print &

PROFILE COMPONENTS

       Path: To determine the user's Mail directory

       Unseen-Sequence: To name sequences denoting unseen messages

       showproc: Program to show messages

EXAMPLES

       In  the	first example, show displays the contents of message 36 in the current folder: % show 36 In the next example, the pr(1) program is
       used to list the current message: % show -showproc pr

FILES

       The user profile.

SEE ALSO

       more(1), mhl(1), next(1), pick(1), prev(1), scan(1)

																	   show(1)