NAME

       show - show (display) messages

SYNOPSIS

       show [+folder] [msgs] [-draft] [-showproc program] [-showmimeproc program] [-header |
            -noheader] [-checkmime | -nocheckmime] [switches for showproc or showmimeproc]
            [-version] [-help]

DESCRIPTION

       Show  lists  each  of  the  specified  messages  to  the  standard  output (typically, the
       terminal).

       By default, text (non-MIME) messages are filtered and displayed by the  nmh  command  mhl.
       This  command will display text messages in a nice, uniform format.  It also allows you to
       configure the format of the displayed messages and which headers fields  are  shown.   See
       the mhl(1) manual page for the details about this command.  This default can be changed by
       defining the showproc profile component.  Any switches not recognized by show  are  passed
       along  to  that  program.  To override the default and the showproc profile component, use
       the -showproc program switch.  For example, -showproc more will cause the more program  to
       list  the  messages  with  no  reformatting.   Normally,  this program is specified as the
       showproc in the user's .mh_profile, rather than using a command line switch.

       By default, non-text messages (MIME messages with multi-media contents) are processed  and
       displayed by the nmh command mhshow.  See the mhshow(1) manual page for details about this
       command.  This default can changed by defining the showmimeproc  profile  component.   Any
       switches  not  recognized  by  show  are  passed  along to that program.  To override this
       default and the showmimeproc profile component, use the -showmimeproc program switch.

       Note that in some cases, show may invoke the showmimeproc even for textual contents.  This
       will  happen  for  text  messages  that  specify a transfer encoding (such as MIME quoted-
       printable or base64) or specify a character set that show doesn't believe can be displayed
       natively.  The appropriate locale(1) environment variables should be set to the terminal's
       native character set to  avoid  gratuitous  invocations  of  the  showmimeproc.   See  the
       locale(1) man page for details about these environment variables.

       The option -checkmime (set by default) instructs show to test if any of the messages to be
       displayed are non-text (MIME) messages.  If any are non-text, they are  displayed  by  the
       program  showmimeproc,  else  they  are  displayed  by  the  program showproc.  The option
       -nocheckmime disables this test and instructs show to use showproc, regardless of  whether
       any of the messages are non-text (MIME) messages.

       The  -noshowproc  switch  will  disable  any  formatting  or  paging  of  messages.  It is
       equivalent to -nocheckmime -showproc cat.  It is still accepted, but should be  considered
       (somewhat) obsolete.

       The  -header  switch  tells  show  to  display a one-line description of the message being
       shown.  This description includes the folder and the message number.

       If no `msgs' are specified, the current message is  used.   Although  it  depends  on  the
       specific  showproc  or  showmimeproc,  in  the default setup when more than one message is
       specified, you will be prompted for a  <RETURN>  prior  to  listing  each  message.   Each
       message  will be listed a page at a time, and when the end of page is reached, the program
       will wait for a <SPACE> or <RETURN>.  If a <RETURN> is entered, it  will  print  the  next
       line, whereas <SPACE> will print the next screenful.

       If  the  standard  output  is not a terminal, no queries are made, and each file is listed
       with a one-line header and two lines of separation.

       “show -draft” will list the file <mh-dir>/draft if it exists.

       If the profile entry “Unseen-Sequence” is present and non-empty,  then  show  will  remove
       each of the messages shown from each sequence named by the profile entry.

FILES

       $HOME/.mh_profile          The user profile

PROFILE COMPONENTS

       Path:                To determine the user's nmh directory
       Current-Folder:      To find the default current folder
       Unseen-Sequence:     To name sequences denoting unseen messages
       showproc:            Program to show text (non-MIME) messages
       showmimeproc:        Program to show non-text (MIME) messages

SEE ALSO

       mhl(1), mhshow(1), next(1), prev(1), scan(1)

DEFAULTS

       `+folder' defaults to the current folder
       `msgs' defaults to cur
       `-checkmime'
       `-header'

CONTEXT

       If  a  folder is given, it will become the current folder.  The last message selected will
       become the current message.

BUGS

       The -header switch doesn't work when `msgs' expands to more  than  one  message.   If  the
       showproc  is  mhl,  then this problem can be circumvented by referencing the “messagename”
       field in the mhl format file.

       Show updates the user's context before showing the message.  Hence show will mark messages
       as  seen  prior to the user actually seeing them.  This is generally not a problem, unless
       the user relies on the “unseen” messages  mechanism,  and  interrupts  show  while  it  is
       showing “unseen” messages.

       If your showproc is mhl (the default), then show uses a built-in mhl: it does not actually
       run the mhl program.  Hence, if you define your own showproc , don't  call  it  mhl  since
       show won't run it.

       If  your  showproc  is the pager more, then avoid running show in the background with only
       its standard output piped to another process, as in

            show | imprint &

       Due to a bug in more, show will go into a “tty  input”  state.   To  avoid  this  problem,
       re-direct show's diagnostic output as well.  For users of csh:

            show |& imprint &

       For users of sh:

            show 2>&1 | imprint &