BURST(1) UNIX Programmer's Manual BURST(1) NAME burst - explode digests into messages SYNOPSIS burst [+folder] [msgs] [-inplace] [-noinplace] [-quiet] [-noquiet] [-verbose] [-noverbose] [-help] 9 _B_u_r_s_t considers the specified messages in the named folder to be Internet digests, and explodes them in that folder. If `-inplace' is given, each digest is replaced by the "table of contents" for the digest (the original digest is removed). _B_u_r_s_t then renumbers all of the messages follow- ing the digest in the folder to make room for each of the messages contained within the digest. These messages are placed immediately after the digest. If `-noinplace' is given, each digest is preserved, no table of contents is produced, and the messages contained within the digest are placed at the end of the folder. Other mes- sages are not tampered with in any way. The `-quiet' switch directs _b_u_r_s_t to be silent about report- ing messages that are not in digest format. The `-verbose' switch directs _b_u_r_s_t to tell the user the general actions that it is taking to explode the digest. It turns out that _b_u_r_s_t works equally well on forwarded mes- sages and blind-carbon-copies as on Internet digests, pro- vided that the former two were generated by _f_o_r_w or _s_e_n_d. FILES $HOME/.mh_profile The user profile PROFILE COMPONENTS Path: To determine the user's MH directory Current-Folder: To find the default current folder Msg-Protect: To set mode when creating a new message SEE ALSO _P_r_o_p_o_s_e_d _S_t_a_n_d_a_r_d _f_o_r _M_e_s_s_a_g_e _E_n_c_a_p_s_u_l_a_t_i_o_n (aka RFC-934), inc(1), msh(1), pack(1) DEFAULTS `+folder' defaults to the current folder `msgs' defaults to cur `-noinplace' `-noquiet' `-noverbose' 9 Printed 1/10/87 MH 1 BURST(1) UNIX Programmer's Manual BURST(1) CONTEXT If a folder is given, it will become the current folder. If `-inplace' is given, then the first message burst becomes the current message. This leaves the context ready for a _s_h_o_w of the table of contents of the digest, and a _n_e_x_t to see the first message of the digest. If `-noinplace' is given, then the first message extracted from the first dig- est burst becomes the current message. This leaves the con- text in a similar, but not identical, state to the context achieved when using `-inplace'. BUGS The _b_u_r_s_t program enforces a limit on the number of messages which may be _b_u_r_s_t from a single message. This number is on the order of 1000 messages. There is usually no limit on the number of messages which may reside in the folder after the _b_u_r_s_ting. Although _b_u_r_s_t uses a sophisticated algorithm to determine where one encapsulated message ends and another begins, not all digestifying programs use an encapsulation algorithm. In degenerate cases, this usually results in _b_u_r_s_t finding an encapsulation boundary prematurely and splitting a single encapsulated message into two or more messages. These erroneous digestifying programs should be fixed. Furthermore, any text which appears after the last encapsu- lated message is not placed in a seperate message by _b_u_r_s_t. In the case of digestified messages, this text is usally an "End of digest" string. As a result of this possibly un-friendly behavior on the part of _b_u_r_s_t, note that when the `-inplace' option is used, this trailing information is lost. In practice, this is not a problem since correspon- dents usually place remarks in text prior to the first encapsulated message, and this information is not lost. Printed 1/10/87 MH 2