HP-UX Reference (11i v2 04/09) - 1 User Commands A-M (vol 1)

e
elm(1) elm(1)
The message consists of another message in standard message format.
metamail is a system program that is invoked by
elm to manage the display of messages and attach-
ments that are not displayable in ordinary ASCII text.
metamail provides external support for other Content-Types, as defined in one or more
mailcap files.
The system
mailcap file is /etc/mail/mailcap
. You can define your own default
mailcap file in
$HOME/.mailcap
. You can also specify your own list of
mailcap files by setting the MAILCAPS
environment variable. The mailcap files are searched in order until an entry is found that matches the
Content-Type and any qualifications.
A minimum
mailcap entry consists of a line in the form:
content-type
; command
The command is the command that you would type to view a file of the indicated Content-Type, with the
string
%s replaced by a file name. For example, to view body part that was HTML source text and had
the Content-Type
text/html, you could have the entry
text/html; netscape %s
Similarly, for a GIF image file, you could have the entry
image/gif; xv %s
RFC 1521 defines a number of Content-Types that
elm leaves for metamail to handle:
text/richtext
multipart/alternative
multipart/parallel
multipart/digest
message/partial
message/external-body
image/jpeg
image/gif
audio/basic
video/mpeg
application/octet-stream
application/postscript
Check the system mailcap file for entries that handle many of them.
EXTERNAL INFLUENCES
Environment Variables
HOME Your home (login) directory.
EDITOR If set and nonnull, provides a default value for the alteditor and editor string vari-
ables.
LANG If set and nonnull, determines the language in which messages are displayed. The
default is C. See environ(5).
MAILCAPS If set, defines the search path for mailcap files used by metamail. The default is
$HOME/.mailcap:/etc/mail/mailcap
PAGER If set and nonnull, provides a default value for the pager string variable.
SHELL If set and nonnull, provides a default value for the shell string variable.
TMPDIR If set and nonnull, provides a default value for the tmpdir string variable.
VISUAL If set and nonnull, provides a default value for the visualeditor string variable.
International Code Set Support
Single- and multibyte character code sets are supported.
EXAMPLES
Message Mode Example
To send a message without loading the main
elm mail-processing program, use the simple command form
consisting of the name of the program followed by the recipient’s login name and optional address. elm
prompts for subject and copies, then starts an editor so you can compose the message (user responses are
HP-UX 11i Version 2: September 2004 − 29 − Hewlett-Packard Company Section 1−−257