Re: use current folder name as argument to abitrary command

[Kyle Wheeler <kyle-mutt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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On Friday, December 12 at 07:30 AM, quoth Noah Sheppard:
> I'm using this to set up some mail archiving. Here's what I tried 
> first:
>
> set my_archdir="/mnt/data/storage/mail/boxes" #the path to the directory 
> which will contain my archive dirs 
> macro index,pager S "<save-message>$my_archdir/^<enter>"

If I recall correctly, mutt's "magic" characters only work when 
they're the *first* character in the folder name. Think of them as 
behaving similar to the way that ~ behaves in the shell.

> folder-hook . set my_curdir="^"

That doesn't work because mutt doesn't consider random variable 
assignments as mailbox path names, and so doesn't attempt to expand 
mailbox path shortcuts in them.

> That said, even when I run 'set my_curdir="^"' in mutt after muttrc 
> has been read, my_curdir is still empty.

Really? When I do it, my_curdir becomes "^". Test it like this:

     set ?my_curdir

Your macro has an additional problem: it wouldn't work even if 
my_curdir WAS correctly being set! You see, variable expansion is 
evaluated at the time the macro is established! To delay variable 
expansion until the macro is *triggered*, you'd have to escape the 
variable. For example, consider how this works:

     set my_archdir=/foo
     macro index,pager S "<save-message>$my_archdir<enter>"
     set my_archdir=/bar

When you trigger the macro, where you you expect it to be saved? If 
you guessed "/foo", you'd be right, because variable expansion 
happened when the macro was established. If you want the variable to 
be re-interpreted every the macro is triggered, you'd have to do this:

     macro index,pager S "<save-message>\$my_archdir<enter>"

> If 'set record="^"' works to get the current folder name, why 
> doesn't it work to put the current folder name in a user variable,

That's because mutt expects $record will be a mailbox path name, and 
so expands mailbox path shortcut characters in it. However, things 
like $my_curdir are treated the same way variables like $signature are 
treated: as arbitrary strings.

> If not, how does one get the current folder name in a variable which 
> can be used in various places?

Well, technically, if you set $record to ^, you can use that. That's 
not exactly *convenient*, since $record has a primary function, I know 
that, but... As far as I know, there isn't a really *good* way to do 
what you're looking for (at the moment).

~Kyle
- -- 
Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing 
your temper.
                                                        -- Robert Frost
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