The -verbose switch directs sortm to tell the user the general actions that it is taking to place the folder in sorted order.
The -datefield field switch tells sortm the name of the field to use when making the date comparison. If the user has a special field in each message, such as ``BB-Posted:'' or ``Delivery-Date:'', then the -datefield switch can be used to direct sortm which field to examine.
The -textfield field switch causes sortm to sort messages by the specified text field. If this field is ``subject'', any leading "re:" is stripped off. In any case, all characters except letters and numbers are stripped and the resulting strings are sorted datefield-major, textfield-minor, using a case insensitive comparison.
With -textfield field, if -limit days is specified, messages with similar textfields that are dated within `days' of each other appear together. Specifying -nolimit makes the limit infinity. With -limit 0, the sort is instead made textfield-major, date-minor.
For example, to order a folder by date-major, subject-minor, use:
^$HOME/.mh_profile~^The user profile
^Path:~^To determine the user's nmh directory ^Current-Folder:~^To find the default current folder
`+folder' defaults to the current folder `msgs' defaults to all `-datefield' defaults to date `-notextfield' `-noverbose' `-nolimit'
Messages which were in the folder, but not specified by `msgs', used to be moved to the end of the folder; now such messages are left untouched.
Sortm sometimes did not preserve the message numbering in a folder (e.g., messages 1, 3, and 5, might have been renumbered to 1, 2, 3 after sorting). This was a bug, and has been fixed. To compress the message numbering in a folder, use ``folder -pack'' as always.
When sortm complains about a message which it can't temporally order, it complains about the message number prior to sorting. It should indicate what the message number will be after sorting.