Re: [Nmh-workers] Pasing stdin to "inc -file" ?

[Ken Hornstein]

>>Can't you use rcvstore for this?
>
>I don't know.  Can I?
>
>This (rcvstore) is yet one more thing that I never even knew about until
>today.

So, some meta-observations ...

As others have alluded, inc is a tool designed to be run interactively
by humans (although many times it's being run by a front-end program).
It's got a fair amount of logic in it that isn't really appropriate for
asynchronous background use (example: basically incorporates all of scan(1).
Also, on the backend it actually uses most of the scan routines for I/O).

The tool you want it rcvstore(1); it's designed to take a message on
standard input and incorporate it into a folder.  If you're concerned
about it modifying the context, well, assuming by "context" you mean
the current folder and 'cur' message, the answer is that it does not do
that.  It _does_ modify the unseen sequence, but you can turn that off
if you prefer.

As others have mentioned, slocal(1) performs the same function as procmail;
it's designed to be called from a forward file.  It's not as featureful
as procmail, however.

>(It would have been Nice, I think, if the SEE ALSO section of the man
>page for inc had mentioned this one.)

So, we're probably not so great on documentation here; most of this was
inherited from the original MH package, and a lot of us old-timers don't
appreciate how it's hard to come to nmh cold.  So I, for one, do appreciate
the feedback.

>Sorry to be so helpless, but as all can see now, I'm actually rather
>seriously ignorant, both about anything but the most rudimentary features
>of procmail and also, apparently, about all but the most fundamental
>commands provided by nmh.

Well, have you seen the O'Reilly MH book?  It's been open-sourced by
Jerry Peek (the original author).  While it hasn't been kept up-to-date
with respect to new features in nmh, it's got a ton of information
that's still relevant:

        http://rand-mh.sourceforge.net/book/

It might help fill in some of the gaps.  Do we have a link to that on
the nmh home page?  Ok, we do.

--Ken