1 10/20/83 Message selection control arguments:
2
3 The list, print, print_header, delete, and retrieve requests accept
4 several control arguments to supply further criteria for message
5 selection.
6
7
8 Application of selection control arguments:
9 The selections implied by these control arguments are applied to the
10 messages identified by any message specifiers given to the request. If
11 no message specifiers are given, all messages of the appropriate type
12 in the mailbox are considered for selection. For example, the request
13 line:
14
15 list 23:30 -from Palter.Multics
16
17 lists all non-deleted messages in the mailbox from message #23
18 through #30 which were sent by the user Palter.Multics.
19
20
21 Selection classes:
22 These control arguments are divided into four classes -- subject
23 selection, time selection, author selection, and recipient selection.
24 If several control arguments from one class are provided, a message
25 need only satisfy one of the selections in that class to be considered
26 by the request. If control arguments from more than one class are
27 provided, a message must satisfy one of the selections in all of these
28 classes provided to be considered by the request. For example, the
29 request line:
30
31 list -from Palter.Multics -from Sibert.Multics -after 1/1/82
32
33 lists all non-deleted messages in the mailbox which were both sent by
34 either of the two users Palter.Multics and Sibert.Multics and sent any
35 time from January 1982 to the present. Ie: a message sent by
36 Palter.Multics on 23 December 1981 would not be listed.
37
38
39 Case sensitivity of selection:
40 Control arguments are provided to allow subject selection and qedx
41 regular expression matching for author and recipient selections to
42 ignore the distinction between upper and lower case characters when
43 examining header fields. Thus,
44
45 -sj foo -non_case_sensitive
46
47 will match a Subject field if it contains any of the strings "foo",
48 "FOO", "Foo", etc.
49
50 -case_sensitive, -cs
51 causes subject selections and qedx regular expression searches for
52 author and recipient selections to be case sensitive. Default
53 -non_case_sensitive, -ncs
54 causes subject selections and qedx regular expression searches for
55 author and recipient selections to be case insensitive.
56
57
58 Subject selection:
59 Subject selection control arguments may use either qedx regular
60 expressions or literal matches. The string value STR supplied to
61 these control arguments is interpreted as a qedx regular expression if
62 it is surrounded by slashes /; otherwise, a literal occurence of the
63 string must appear in the header field.
64
65 If the string contains any spaces, horizontal tabs, quotes,
66 parentheses, or brackets, it must be enclosed in quotes to avoid
67 misinterpretation by the request line processor and any quotes in the
68 string must be doubled.
69
70 For example:
71
72 -sj /^read_mail/
73
74 only selects messages whose Subject fields start with the string
75 "read_mail".
76
77
78 -subject STR, -sj STR,
79 -subject /STR/, -sj /STR/
80 selects any messages of the appropriate type whose Subject fields
81 match the specified STR.
82 -in_reply_to STR, -irt STR,
83 -in_reply_to /STR/, -irt /STR/
84 selects any messages of the appropriate type whose In-Reply-To
85 fields match the specified STR.
86
87
88 Time selection:
89 Time selection control arguments are applied to the date/time that the
90 message was created as indicated in the message's Date header field.
91
92 In the following descriptions, DT, DT1, and DT2 represent date/time
93 strings. For details of the acceptable date/time string formats, type:
94
95 .. help date_time_strings.gi
96
97 In the case of -between, -after, and -before, the date/times specified
98 are truncated to an appropriate midnight. For example:
99
100 -between 9/1/82 9/30/82
101
102 will match all messages created during the month of September 1982.
103
104
105 -between DT1 DT2, -bt DT1 DT2
106 selects any messages of the appropriate type which were created
107 between the days specified by DT1 and DT2, inclusive.
108 -after DT, -af DT
109 selects any messages of the appropriate type which were created on
110 or after the date specified by DT.
111 -before DT, -be DT
112 selects any messages of the appropriate type which were created
113 before the date specified by DT.
114 -date DT, -dt DT
115 selects any messages of the appropriate type which were created on
116 the date specified by DT.
117
118
119 The following time selection control arguments do not truncate the
120 date/times specified to an appropriate midnight and, therfore, provide
121 finer control on the messages selected by time:
122
123 -between_time DT1 DT2, -btt DT1 DT2
124 selects any messages of the appropriate type which were created
125 between the date/times specified by DT1 and DT2, respectively.
126 -after_time DT, -aft DT
127 selects any messages of the appropriate type which were created
128 after the date/time specified by DT.
129 -before_time DT, -bet DT
130 selects any messages of the appropriate type which were created
131 before the date/time specified by DT.
132
133
134 Author and recipient selection:
135 Author and recipient selection control arguments either may exactly
136 match the individual addresses within the appropriate header field or
137 may use a qedx regular expression match against the entire content of
138 the header field as single string. If the value supplied to these
139 control arguments is surrounded by slashes, it is interpreted as a qedx
140 regular expression to match against the entire content of the header
141 field; otherwise, the value, which might actually consist of several
142 tokens, is interpreted as an address which must exactly match one or
143 more of the addresses in the field. For a description of the valid
144 syntax for an address, type:
145
146 help addresses.gi -section control argument
147
148
149 If a qedx regular expression match is requested and the string contains
150 any spaces, horizontal tabs, quotes, parentheses, or brackets, it must
151 be enclosed in quotes to avoid misinterpretation by the request line
152 processor and any quotes in the string must be doubled.
153
154 For example:
155
156 -from /Palter.*MIT/
157
158 matches any message whose From field contains the two strings "Palter"
159 and "MIT" and:
160
161 -to gmp -at System-M
162
163 matches any message one of whose primary recipients is the user named
164 "gmp" on the foreign system "System-M".
165
166
167 Author selection:
168 -from address, -fm address
169 -from /STR/, -fm /STR/
170 selects any messages of the appropriate type whose From field
171 either contains the specified address or matches the given qedx
172 regular expression.
173 -reply_to address, -rpt address
174 -reply_to /STR/, -rpt /STR/
175 selects any messages of the appropriate type whose Reply-To field
176 either contains the specified address or matches the given qedx
177 regular expression.
178
179
180 Recipient selection:
181 -recipient address, -rcp address
182 -recipient /STR/, -rcp /STR/
183 selects any messages of the appropriate type whose To, cc, bcc, or
184 Redistributed-To fields either contains the specified address or
185 matches the given qedx regular expression.
186 -to address, -to /STR/
187 selects any messages of the appropriate type whose To field either
188 contains the specified address or matches the given regular
189 expression.
190 -cc address, -cc /STR/
191 selects any messages of the appropriate type whose cc field either
192 contains the specified address or matches the given regular
193 expression.
194
195
196 -bcc address, -bcc /STR/
197 selects any messages of the appropriate type whose bcc field either
198 contains the specified address or matches the given regular
199 expression.
200 -forwarded_to address, -fwdt address
201 -forwarded_to /STR/, -fwdt /STR/
202 selects any messages of the appropriate type whose Redistributed-To
203 field either contains the specified address or matches the given
204 regular expression.