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Computer Systems Lab CS1000 |
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The electronic mail program, or e-mail, is available on all student accounts. You will want to use e-mail to communicate directly with others. To read your mail, type
vega1% mail
If you have some mail, this will show you a list of numbered messages that you can choose to read. The UNIX mail program offers the following mail commands:
UNIX mail commands | |
h | to get to the list of numbered messages again |
n | to get to message number n |
d n | deletes message number n |
s [n] filename | sames message number n or the current message if no argument is provided to filename. If the file filename already exists, then it is appended. |
w [n] filename | same as save, except the message header information is not included |
q | quits the mail program. Messages that are deleted or saved are removed. Messages that have only been read are appended to the file mbox. Messages that haven't been touched remain in the spool. |
x | quits the mail program leaving all the files inact, even if they were deleted. |
? | displays a help list of all available commands. |
If you read a message, but don't delete it and you quit mail with q (vs. x), then the message is saved in a special file called mbox. Use the -f parameter to read in mail from the mbox file.
vega1% mail -f
To send someone (or yourself) a mail message, type mail either from the command line or from within the mail program, followed by the email address of the person (their login name if in the CS dept.) and hit return.
vega1% mail eric
A subject prompt should appear. Type in the subject of your message followed by return. Next the cursor will appear on an empty line. You can now start typing your message. When you're finished with the message, press return followed by a ^d or a period (``.'') and another return. A carbon copy (cc) prompt will then appear. If you wish to have the message sent to someone else, or yourself, put a login name here followed by return. If you do not want to send the message, type ^c twice.
While entering your message, a variety of tilde escape commands are available. These commands are used by entering the tilde and escape character at the beginning of a line followed by the argument. Below is a summary of the more common tilde escapes.
| |
~r filename | includes the contents of filename into the message. |
~f | includes the last message read (only works if message is sent while already in the mail program reading mail). This is how to forward mail with the standard UNIX mailer |
~m | includes the last message read offset by a tabspace |
~s subject | replaces the previous subject with subject |
~vi | invokes the vi editor |
Be sure not to accumulate too much mail in your mailbox to avoid problems with reading mail (such as the mail program hanging up and you not being able to read your mail). If a mail message is important, save it as a file (with the w command) and then delete it.
You may also wish to investigate other mail programs such as pine and elm, which are more powerful and more user-friendly.