02/15/85 mail, ml Syntax as a command: ml path User1...{UserN} {-control_args} or: ml {destination} {-control_args} Function: sends a message to another user or prints messages in any mailbox to which you have sufficient access. Arguments: path is the pathname of a segment to be sent or is an asterisk (*) to indicate that you wish to type a message to be sent (see "Notes on composing mail" below). User_idi is the User_id of a person to whom mail is to be sent. Mail is sent to the mailbox >udd>Project_id>Person_id>Person_id.mbx for each Person_id.Project_id (User_id) argument in the command line. destination can be User_id to specify a mailbox. If destination contains a < or >, it is the pathname of a mailbox. The mbx suffix is assumed in this case. You cannot use destination with -pathname. (Default: your default mailbox) Control arguments: -acknowledge, -ack requests acknowledgement of the pieces of mail. The acknowledgement consists of the string: "Acknowledge message of " and is sent as an interactive message when you invoke this command to print mail. -brief, -bf prints the total number of messages in the mailbox. If the mailbox is empty, nothing is printed. -exclude STR, -ex STR ignores messages sent by users whose User_id matches the User_id specified in STR. The star convention is allowed. If you supplied -match, exclusion is performed before matching. -header, -he prints only the header line for each message. No messages are deleted. -match STR prints messages sent by users whose User_id matches the User_id specified in STR. The star convention is allowed. If you gave -exclude, exclusion is performed before matching. -no_notify, -nnt suppresses the sending of an interactive "You have mail" notification. -pathname path, -pn path specifies a mailbox by pathname. The mbx suffix is assumed. Notes: The extended access used on mailboxes (which are ring 1 segments) permits you to control other users' access to it. Adding, reading, and deleting messages are independent privileges under extended access; for example, you can give a user access to only add messages, to other user access to add messages and to read and delete only the messages he or she has added. Mail and interactive messages sent to a user are placed in the mailbox >udd>Project_id>Person_id>Person_id.mbx. If you are accepting interactive messages, you receive an immediate notification of the form: You have mail from Person_id.Project_id. Segments to be mailed have a maximum length of one record (4096 ASCII characters). See print_mail, read_mail, and send_mail. Notes on composing mail: If path is *, mail responds with "Input" and accepts lines from the terminal until you type a period on a line by itself. The typed lines are then sent to the specified user(s). Notes on printing mail: When the contents of the mailbox named by path are printed, they are preceded by a line of the form: N messages. Each message is preceded by a line of the form i) From: Person_id.Project_id (sent_from) date time (N lines) where: i is the incremental number of the message. The messages are printed in ascending numerical order; the oldest one is numbered 1. Person_id is your registered person identifier. Project_id is the name of the project on which you were logged in when you sent the message. sent_from is an optional field that further identifies you, e.g., your anonymous log-in name. date is the date you sent the message, of the form mm/dd/yy to indicate the month, day, and year. time is the time you sent the message, of the form hhmm.m zzz www to indicate the hours, minutes, and tenths of minutes in 24-hour time followed by the time zone and day of the week. N lines is the number of lines in the message. After printing all messages, this command asks whether you want them deleted. If yes, all messages are deleted; if no, no messages are deleted. In either case, your return to command level. If you quit while the messages are being printed and then issue program_interrupt, the command stops printing and asks whether to delete all messages, including those that were not printed. Notes on creating a mailbox: A default mailbox is created the first time you issue print_mail, read_mail, or accept_messages. The default mailbox is >udd>Project_id>Person_id>Person_id.mbx Notes on extended access: Access on a newly created mailbox is set to adrosw for you, aow for *.SysDaemon.*, and aow for *.*.*. The types of extended access for mailboxes are: add, a adds a message. delete, d deletes any message. read, r reads any message. own, o reads or delete only your own messages, i.e., those sent by you. status, s finds out how many messages are in the mailbox. wakeup, w sends a wakeup when adding a message (used by send_message). The modes n, null, and "" indicate null access. ----------------------------------------------------------- Historical Background This edition of the Multics software materials and documentation is provided and donated to Massachusetts Institute of Technology by Group BULL including BULL HN Information Systems Inc. as a contribution to computer science knowledge. This donation is made also to give evidence of the common contributions of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Bell Laboratories, General Electric, Honeywell Information Systems Inc., Honeywell BULL Inc., Groupe BULL and BULL HN Information Systems Inc. to the development of this operating system. Multics development was initiated by Massachusetts Institute of Technology Project MAC (1963-1970), renamed the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence in the mid 1970s, under the leadership of Professor Fernando Jose Corbato. Users consider that Multics provided the best software architecture for managing computer hardware properly and for executing programs. Many subsequent operating systems incorporated Multics principles. Multics was distributed in 1975 to 2000 by Group Bull in Europe , and in the U.S. by Bull HN Information Systems Inc., as successor in interest by change in name only to Honeywell Bull Inc. and Honeywell Information Systems Inc. . ----------------------------------------------------------- Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute these programs and their documentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted,provided that the below copyright notice and historical background appear in all copies and that both the copyright notice and historical background and this permission notice appear in supporting documentation, and that the names of MIT, HIS, BULL or BULL HN not be used in advertising or publicity pertaining to distribution of the programs without specific prior written permission. Copyright 1972 by Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Honeywell Information Systems Inc. Copyright 2006 by BULL HN Information Systems Inc. Copyright 2006 by Bull SAS All Rights Reserved