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Scripting

Comments

The `#' character introduces an end-of-line comment. All characters until and including the end of line are ignored.

Displaying arbitrary text

The `echo' (`ec') command prints its arguments to stdout.

Sourcing external command files

The command `source filename' reads commands from the named file. Its minimal abbreviation is `so'.

Setting and unsetting the variables.

The mail variables may be set using `set' (`se') command. The command takes a list of assignments. The syntax of an assignment is

`name=string'

Assign a string value to the variable. If string contains whitespace characters it must be enclosed in a pair of double-quote characters (`"')

`name=number'

Assign a numeric value to the variable.

`name'

Assign boolean True value.

`noname'

Assign boolean False value.

Example:

& set askcc nocrt indentprefix="> "

This statement sets askcc to True, crt to False, and indentprefix to "> ".

To unset mail variables use `unset'(`uns') command. The command takes a list of variable names to unset.

Example: To undo the effect of the previous example, do:

& unset askcc crt indentprefix

Conditional statements

The conditional statement allows to execute a set of mail commands depending on the mode the `mail' program is in. The conditional statement is:

if cond
...
else
...
endif

where `...' represents the set of commands to be executed in each branch of the statement. cond can be one of the following:

`s'

True if `mail' is operating in mail sending mode.

`r'

True if `mail' is operating in mail reading mode.

`t'

True if stdout is a terminal device (as opposed to a regular file).

The conditional statements can be nested to arbitrary depth. The minimal abbreviations for `if', `else' and `endif' commands are `i', `el' and `en'.

Example:

if t
set crt prompt="& "
else
unset prompt
endif
if s
alt gray@farlep.net gray@mirddin.farlep.net
set 

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