pick(1) 						      General Commands Manual							   pick(1)

NAME

       pick - select messages by content (only available within the message handling system, mh)

SYNOPSIS

       pick [+folder] [msgs] [options]

OPTIONS

       Searches  for  messages sent after the specified date. This command can be used with pattern-matching options, and also in conjunction with
       the -before option to specify a date range. The date must be enclosed in double quotes ("). This option accepts RFC  822-style  dates.	It
       also  accepts  days of the week, and the special dates today and yesterday. Days of the week always refer to days in the past; for example,
       saturday refers to last Saturday, not to next Saturday.	If you specify a day of the week or a special date, pick counts  days  as  24-hour
       periods	relative  to the current day and time.	For example, if it is 9:30 A.M. on 11 July 1995 and you specify -after yesterday, the pick
       command finds messages sent after 24 hours ago, or 9:30 A.M. on 10 July 1995.

	      By default, pick consults the Date: field of the message. If you wish to use the date in another header field, you can specify  this
	      with  the  -datefield  option.  Searches for messages sent before the specified date. This command can be used with pattern-matching
	      options, and also in conjunction with the -after option to specify a date range. The date must be enclosed  in  double  quotes  (").
	      This option accepts RFC 822-style dates.

	      It  also	accepts  days of the week, and the special dates today, tomorrow, and yesterday.  Days of the week always refer to days in
	      the past; for example, saturday refers to last Saturday, not to next Saturday.  If you specify a day of the week or a special  date,
	      pick  counts  days as 24-hour periods relative to the current day and time.  For example, if it is 9:30 A.M. on 11 July 1995 and you
	      specify -before yesterday, the pick command finds messages sent before 24 hours ago, or 9:30 A.M. on 10 July 1995.

	      By default, pick consults the Date: field of the message. If you wish to use the date in another header field, you can specify  this
	      with  the  -datefield  option.   Searches  for  the specified pattern in the cc: field of messages. This option is case-insensitive:
	      lower- and upper-case letters are treated as identical. So a search for the pattern phillips would also find Phillips and  PHILLIPS.
	      If  the  pattern	contains  spaces,  you must enclose it in double quotes (").  Searches for messages sent on a specified date. This
	      option consults the Date: field of messages. You must enclose the date that you give in double quotes (")  if  it  contains  spaces.
	      Specifies  the  header  field to be used by the -before and -after options. By default, these options consult the Date: field of the
	      message header. You can specify a different header field by naming it with this option.  The  -datefield	option	must  precede  the
	      -before  or -after options it is used with.  Searches for the specified pattern in the From: field of messages. This option is case-
	      insensitive: lower- and upper-case letters are treated as identical. So a search for the pattern phillips would also  find  Phillips
	      and  PHILLIPS. If the pattern contains spaces, you must enclose it in double quotes (").	Prints a list of the valid options to this
	      command.	The -list option lists the numbers of the messages that have met the search criteria. This is the usual  default  behavior
	      of pick.	If you use the -nolist option, pick indicates how many messages met the search criteria.

	      If  you  use  the -sequence option to add the messages found to a sequence, the default behavior is to use the -nolist option.  Sets
	      the read permissions of sequences. Normally, when you create a sequence with the -sequence option, the sequence will not be accessi-
	      ble  to  other  MH  users.  The  -public option makes the sequence accessible to other MH users. You can use the -nopublic option to
	      ensure that the sequence that you create is only accessible to yourself.	Searches the entire message for the specified string. Each
	      line  of	the message is searched for the pattern that you specify. The -search option is a modified grep(1). Like grep, this option
	      is case-sensitive; it treats upper- and lower-case letters as different. So a search for the word strawberries would not find a mes-
	      sages  which  contained  the  word  STRAWBERRIES.   If the search pattern contains spaces, you must enclose it in double quotes (").
	      Specifies a sequence in which pick places the messages found. For more information on sequences,	see  mark(1).	The  name  of  the
	      sequence	must  begin  with  a  letter,  and  must  consist entirely of alphabetic or numeric characters; no punctuation is allowed.
	      Searches for the specified pattern in the Subject: field of messages. This option is case-insensitive: lower- and upper-case letters
	      are  treated  as identical. So a search for the pattern phillips would also find Phillips and PHILLIPS. If the pattern contains spa-
	      ces, you must enclose it in double quotes (").  Searches for the specified pattern in the To: field  of  messages.  This	option	is
	      case-insensitive:  lower-  and  upper-case  letters  are	treated as identical. So a search for the pattern phillips would also find
	      Phillips and PHILLIPS. If the pattern contains spaces, you must enclose it in double quotes (").	Specifies whether to zero existing
	      sequences  before adding new messages. Normally, pick removes all existing messages from a sequence before adding messages to it. If
	      you specify the -nozero option, pick will add the messages it finds to the existing contents of the sequence. This option only works
	      with the -sequence option.  Searches a specified header field. If you wish to search for a pattern in a particular header field, you
	      can specify the field by placing two dashes (-) before the name of the field. This option is case-insensitive: lower- and upper-case
	      letters  are  treated as identical.  So a search for the pattern phillips would also find Phillips and PHILLIPS. If the pattern con-
	      tains spaces, you must enclose it in double quotes (").

	      The pick command recognizes the following common header fields: To:, cc:, Date:, From:, and Subject:. You can search these fields by
	      preceding the name with one dash only.

       In addition to the above options, you can direct pick to start its search a specified number of days ago. To do this, precede the number of
       days with a dash (-). The pick command counts days as 24-hour periods relative to the current day and time.  For example,  if  it  is  9:30
       A.M.  on  11  July  1995  and you specify -10, the following pick command finds messages sent before 240 hours ago, or 9:30 A.M. on 30 June
       1995: % pick -subject strawberries -10 1 6

       The pick command also supports complex boolean operations.  The -not, -or and -and options allow you to modify  the  behavior  of  pattern-
       matching  options.  In  the  following  command, the -not option means that pick searches for messages that were not from fred: % pick -not
       -from fred

       In the next example, the -or option finds all messages from fred or from david. If the -or option is not used, pick searches  for  messages
       with both the string fred and the string david in the From: field.  % pick -from fred -or -from david

       The  pattern-matching  options normally take precedence over -not, which in turn takes precedence over -and, which in turn takes precedence
       over -or.

       You can override the default precedence with the -lbrace and -rbrace options. These act just like opening and closing parentheses in  logi-
       cal expressions.

DESCRIPTION

       The pick command lets you search messages in a folder on a diverse range of search criteria.

       You  can search the mail headers or the text of some or all of the messages within a folder for the specified criteria. You can use pattern
       matching or date constraint operations. You can use the messages that you find with other MH commands, or you can place them in a sequence.

       By default, pick searches all the messages in the current folder. You can specify a folder other than the current folder using the +folder-
       name  option.  Also,  if you do not want to search all messages within the folder, you can specify more than one message or a range of mes-
       sages using the message numbers.

       You can search on the contents of the most common header fields by giving the name of the field as an option, preceded by a dash (-).   The
       pick  command allows you to specify the following header fields in this way: To:, cc:, Date:, From:, and Subject:.  You can also search the
       contents of any other header field by preceding the name of the field with two dashes.

       The pick also allows you to introduce time constraints.	You can search for messages sent before, after, or between specified dates.

   Combining pick with Other Commands
       You can combine the output of pick directly with any MH command. by using a technique called back-quoting. Enclose the pick command and its
       associated  arguments  and  options  in back quotes (`). The system performs back-quoted commands first. In the following example, the pick
       command is performed first, and the output is then listed by the scan command: % scan `pick -from jones`
	   3  16/01 jones	       Meeting 10.00 tomorrow<<There wi
	  17  22/01 jones	       Minutes of meeting 16/1<<Any com
	  21  01/02 jones	       Next week's meeting canceled<<T

       If pick finds that there is no mail from Jones, it will output the illegal character 0. This will cause the scan  command  to  fail  grace-
       fully.

       You  can use back-quoting to combine pick with any MH command. For more information on back-quoting, see the reference page for your shell;
       for example, csh(1) or sh(1).

RESTRICTIONS

       The sequence name, punctuation and message list must not exceed 1024 characters. In practice, this gives a  reasonable  limit  of  approxi-
       mately 200 non-consecutive messages in a sequence.

PROFILE COMPONENTS

       Path: To determine your Mail directory

EXAMPLES

       The  first  example  finds all the mail in the current folder that was sent by Christine: % pick -from christine 1 3 8 In the next example,
       pick searches messages 10-20 in the +sent folder for messages that were sent to Kafka: % pick +sent 10-20 -to Kafka pick: no messages match
       specification  The  next  example  finds  all messages from Jack, and places them in a sequence called testing: % pick -from Jack -sequence
       testing 3 hits The next example finds all messages sent to Holloway since 10th June: % pick -to holloway -after "10 Jun 1990" 19

FILES

       The user profile.

SEE ALSO

       csh(1), ed(1), grep(1), sh(1), inc(1), mark(1)

																	   pick(1)