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Re: [Nmh-workers] Is Pick Antiquated?

2012-02-04 11:47:14
Thus spake Ralph Corderoy:
Hi,

I've a fan of the Unix philosophy, many small programs doing one thing
each and doing it well, with the whole being greater than the sum of the
parts, but I wonder if these days pick(1) wouldn't be a separate
program.

What if scan, refile, etc., all accepted the same expression grammar for
selecting messages in a similar way to pick and not just their limited
message sequence (set) notation, e.g. `lp:-5'.  I know it's not much of
a leap from

    refile +cor `pick -list -sub inet -o -from rss last:100`

to

    refile +cor -sub inet -o -from rss last:100

but it avoids the `pick -list echoing 0' issue, the limited number of
sequences, the need for xargs, and perhaps pick's grammar isn't the
right one anyway?

    refile +cor sub:inet or from:rss -100

I'm not sure if I was starting now I'd have pick(1).  If mark(1) took an
expression then it alters the sequence/set.  scan with a format does
pick's -list of the message numbers.

Having other nmh command understand pick syntax might be uesful. But
removing pick would not be. Because message numbers are also filenames,
pick is handy for generating lists of filenames to be consumed by other
non-nmh programs.
 
-- 
J.

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