Jon Steinhart wrote:
There's no good way to test whether
or not nmh is installed. When I set up my program, I want to fail with
an error message if the user hasn't set up a mail directory, etc.
...
So, I'd like to add something to nmh to allow for installation testing. I
think that the best way to do this would be to add a report-only
option to install-mh.
It's always bugged me that MH/nmh starts to install a new user setup if
it can't find something it's looking for -- like the MH (.mh_profile)
file. IMHO, it should simply fail and print an error message that gives
the pathname of the MH file that it's looking for (that's either the
setting of the MH envariable, or $HOME/.mh_profile). It could also tell
the user how to install MH/nmh. The error could say something like:
"<progname>: aborting: can't read <pathname-of-MH-file>. Check your MH
environment variable (if any) or run install-mh to install nmh."
I haven't given a lot of thought to the implications, or to all the
possible permutations (which problems cause install-mh to be invoked).
Still, this method (telling the user to run install-mh if MH isn't
installed) seems like a more sane way to handle the problem. Comments,
anyone? Would this change break any front-end programs (mh-e, etc.)
that somehow depend on the prompts that install-mh now prints by default?
Jerry
--
Jerry Peek, jpeek(_at_)jpeek(_dot_)com, http://www.jpeek.com/