Caution About MH Files and Newline Characters

MH commands expect their files, like the MH profile, to end with a newline character. (In general, you get a newline when you're using a text editor and press RETURN.) The vi editor will automatically terminate the last line with a newline character. Some other editors, including GNU Emacs, may not always put a newline at the end. When you edit an MH file, be careful about this.

A file that doesn't end with a newline can put MH commands like inc into an endless loop. If your MH commands "freeze," be sure that your MH files end with a newline. You can use a UNIX command such as:

% tail -1 file | od -c

000000   s   h   o   w   p   r   o   c   :     m   h   l  \n
000016

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This file is from the third edition of the book MH & xmh: Email for Users & Programmers, ISBN 1-56592-093-7, by Jerry Peek. Copyright © 1991, 1992, 1995 by O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. This file is freely-available; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation. For more information, see the file copying.htm.