.Dd July 22, 2016
.Dt MMSG 7
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm mmsg
.Nd mblaze message argument syntax
.Sh DESCRIPTION
This manpage documents the message syntax used
by the tools
.Xr maddr 1 ,
.Xr magrep 1 ,
.Xr mflag 1 ,
.Xr mhdr 1 ,
.Xr mless 1 ,
.Xr mrep 1 ,
.Xr mscan 1 ,
.Xr mseq 1 ,
.Xr mshow 1 ,
.Xr msort 1 ,
.Xr mthread 1 .
.Pp
In general, you can always pass a file name as a message,
if it contains a
.Sq Li \&/
character.
Use
.Sq Li \&./
to prefix messages in the current directory.
You can also pass a Maildir folder, which will be expanded
to all messages in the
.Pa cur/
directory.
.Pp
Sequences have the format
.Sq Ar start Ns Cm ":" Ns Ar stop ,
where
.Ar start
and
.Ar stop
are one-based indexes into the sequence.
Negative numbers count from the end.
If
.Ar start
is the empty string,
.Li 1
will be used instead.
If
.Ar stop
is the empty string,
.Li \&-1
will be used instead.
Thus,
.Sq Cm ":"
represents the whole sequence.
If the sequence does not contain a
.Sq Cm ":" ,
it is considered to be a single message, equivalent to the range
.Sq Ar start Ns Cm ":" Ns Ar start
of size one.
.Pp
If the sequence is threaded, the following
syntax may be used:
.Sq Ar msg Ns Cm "="
refers to the whole thread that contains
.Ar msg .
.Sq Ar msg Ns Cm "^"
refers to the parent of the message
.Ar msg
and may be repeated to refer to grand-parents.
.Sq Ar msg Ns Cm "_"
refers to the subthread headed by
.Ar msg
(i.e. all messages below with more indentation).
.Pp
There are four special shortcuts:
.Bl -tag -width 3n
.It Sq Li \&.
refers to the current message.
Additionally, the syntax
.Sq Li \&.+ Ns Ar N
and
.Sq Li \&.- Ns Ar N
can be used to refer to messages relative to the current message.
.It Sq Li \&+
refers to the next message (like
.Sq Li \&.+1 ) .
.It Sq Li \&-
refers to the previous message (like
.Sq Li \&.-1 ) .
.It Sq Li \&$
refers to the last message (like
.Sq Li -1 ) .
.El
.Sh AUTHORS
.An Leah Neukirchen Aq Mt leah@vuxu.org