Re: [Nmh-workers] Future directions for nmh

[Paul Fox]

conrad wrote:
 > Ken> export MHCONTEXT context-$$
 > 
 > .. I live and learn, thanks.
 > 
 > Ken> in the above scenario, what do you EXPECT nmh to do?
 > 
 > Well, from experience, I expect it to do what I tell it, even if that's
 > not what I intend :-/
 > 
 > My preference would be for actions (rmm, refile, repl) to note there's
 > been a context change and ask for confirmation, I think.  The machine is

i'd never considered changing MHCONTEXT either.  but i think i'd
prefer the context be shared more often than i'd want it separate.

as usual, i have a half-assed solution to this problem which works
works surprisingly well in practice:  all of my mh usage goes through
a multi-invocation wrapper script, mostly because i'd rather type one
letter commands.  most invocations of my wrapper commands record their
parent's pid in a well-known file.  the wrapper for rmm, when not
given a specific argument (i.e., "d", rather than "d 32") checks to
make sure its parent's pid is the same as what's recorded in the file --
if not, it warns me.  this catches changes to cur and to the current
folder, and also simply reminds me that i've been running mh commands
elsewhere and that i should think a bit.

paul

excerpt:

    me=${0##*/}
    PPIDFILE=${MAILDIR:-$Mail}/.lastmhppid
    ...
    case $me in
        d)
            if [ ! "$1" -a $PPID != "$(cat $PPIDFILE)" ]
            then
                ( 
                echo Warning: last mh command started from different shell.
                echo Will delete:
                scan cur | map_binary
                echo -n Current message may be WRONG!  Hit y if okay...
                ) >&2
                read ans
                case $ans in
                    [yY]*)
                        ;;
                    *)
                        exit
                        ;;
                esac
            fi
            ;;

        *)
            echo $PPID >$PPIDFILE
            ;;
    esac


=----------------------
 paul fox, address@hidden (arlington, ma, where it's 39.9 degrees)