Mail Specification
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Overview
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The Mail command provides facilities for composing, amending,
sending, receiving and storing messages. Messages are held in files
called folders. All the correspondence which relates to one topic can
be conveniently held in one folder.
In turn, messages themselves consist of a number of components. The
body of the message consists of a text component, and the header of the
message consists of all the other components, e.g.
Subject: Meeting on Wednesday, 2 p.m.
From: S Shaw
To: J Smith, j jones
Please note the new location for our meeting is Room 2019.
S.
The process of composing a message entails placing text into the
various components of the draft message (which is not held in a folder).
For example, addresses go into the "To:" component and the body of the
message goes into the "Text:" component. A draft message can be Sent,
which causes its delivery to all the indicated recipients; each will
receive a one-line TELL message indicating that they have outstanding
mail. After receiving messages, the user may selectively List them.
Further manipulation of a message can involve Forwarding copies to
additional recipients, Replying to its author, Filing for later
reference or Discarding.
The messages in a folder are ordered chronologically and may be
referenced by their index number (i.e. by their position in the folder),
or by using special labels. At any given moment the system has a
current folder, and within it a current message, which are under
scrutiny; this avoids having to specify a folder and message index for
every command.
A standard folder called M#INBOX is created by the system. When the
Mail command is invoked, the normal action is to Open the standard
folder and select it as the current folder.
Only the draft message may be modified. However, any message in a
folder can be Copied to the draft; similarly, the draft message can be
Filed in a folder.
You are notified when a message has arrived for you by a TELL
message from the executive process MAILER.
Calling Mail
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If the Mail command is called with no parameters, it checks whether
any messages have been sent to you and ACCEPTS them. Otherwise it just
issues the prompt 'Mail:', which is reissued after each directive has
been performed until the directive STOP or QUIT is given:
Command:mail
Mail:
Alternatively, the name of a Mail directive may be specified in the
call:
Command:mail(help)
or
Command:mail(compose)
If a directive is to be given with parameters, the directive name
should be followed by a comma:
Command:mail(list,all/.lp)
Mail:
A special call of Mail is provided for use in an FSTARTFILE, so that
it is executed every time you log on to EMAS. This call reports whether
there are any outstanding messages, then returns to Command level:
Command:mail(?)
2 new messages
Command:
The parameters for each Mail command generally take the form
. If no