Customizing Scan Line Formats

mh-e. Node: Customizing Scan Line Formats

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3.4.3.1: Scan line formatting

The name of the program that generates a listing of one line per message is held in mh-scan-prog (default: `"scan"'). Unless this variable contains an absolute pathname, it is assumed to be in the mh-progs directory. You may link another program to scan (see mh-profile(5)) to produce a different type of listing.

If you change the format of the scan lines you'll need to tell mh-e how to parse the new format. As you see, quite a lot of variables are involved to do that. The first variable has to do with pruning out garbage.

mh-valid-scan-line

This regular expression describes a valid scan line. This is used to eliminate error messages that are occasionally produced by inc or scan (default: `"^ *[0-9]"').

Next, two variables control how the message numbers are parsed.

`mh-msg-number-regexp`	This regular expression is used to extract the message number from a scan line. Note that the message number must be placed in quoted parentheses, (\\(...\\)), as in the default of ``"^ *\\([0-9]+\\)"`'.
`mh-msg-search-regexp`	Given a message number (which is inserted in ``%d`'), this regular expression will match the scan line that it represents (default: ``"^[^0-9]*%d[^0-9]"`').

Finally, there are a slew of variables that control how mh-e marks up the scan lines.

`mh-cmd-note`	Number of characters to skip over before inserting notation (default: 4). Note how it relates to the following regular expressions.
`mh-deleted-msg-regexp`	This regular expression describes deleted messages (default: ``"^....D"`'). See also `mh-note-deleted`.
`mh-refiled-msg-regexp`	This regular expression describes refiled messages (default: ``"^....\\^"`'). See also `mh-note-refiled`.
`mh-cur-scan-msg-regexp`	This regular expression matches the current message (default: ``"^....\\+"`'). See also `mh-note-cur`.
`mh-good-msg-regexp`	This regular expression describes which messages should be shown when mh-e goes to the next or previous message. Normally, deleted or refiled messages are skipped over (default: ``"^....[^D^]"`').
`mh-note-deleted`	Messages that have been deleted to are marked by this string (default: ``"D"`'). See also `mh-deleted-msg-regexp`.
`mh-note-refiled`	Messages that have been refiled are marked by this string (default: ``"^"`'). See also `mh-refiled-msg-regexp`.
`mh-note-copied`	Messages that have been copied are marked by this string (default: ``"C"`').
`mh-note-cur`	The current message (in MH, not in mh-e) is marked by this string (default: ``"+"`'). See also `mh-cur-scan-msg-regexp`.
`mh-note-repl`	Messages that have been replied to are marked by this string (default: ``"-"`').
`mh-note-forw`	Messages that have been forwarded are marked by this string (default: ``"F"`').
`mh-note-dist`	Messages that have been redistributed are marked by this string (default: ``"R"`').
`mh-note-printed`	Messages that have been printed are marked by this string (default: ``"P"`').
`mh-note-seq`	Messages in a sequence are marked by this string (default: ``"%"`').

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