DP(8)DP(8)NAMEdp - parse dates 822-style
SYNOPSIS
/usr/lib/dp [-form formatfile] [-format string] [-width columns] [-ver‐
sion] [-help] dates ...
DESCRIPTION
Dp is a program that parses dates according to the ARPA Internet stan‐
dard. It also understands many non-standard formats, such as those
produced by TOPS-20 sites and some UNIX sites using ctime(3). It is
useful for seeing how nmh will interpret a date.
The dp program treats each argument as a single date, and prints the
date out in the official 822-format. Hence, it is usually best to
enclose each argument in quotes for the shell.
To override the output format used by dp, the -format string or -format
file switches are used. This permits individual fields of the address
to be extracted with ease. The string is simply a format string and
the file is simply a format file. See mh-format(5) for the details.
Here is the default format string used by dp:
%<(nodate{text})error: %{text}%|%(putstr(pretty{text}))%>
which says that if an error was detected, print the error, a `:', and
the date in error. Otherwise, output the 822-proper format of the
date.
FILES
$HOME/.mh_profile The user profile
PROFILE COMPONENTS
None
SEE ALSOap(8),
Standard for the Format of ARPA Internet Text Messages (RFC-822)
DEFAULTS
`-format' default as described above
`-width' default to the width of the terminal
CONTEXT
None
BUGS
The argument to the -format switch must be interpreted as a single
token by the shell that invokes dp. Therefore, one must usually place
the argument to this switch inside quotes.
nmh-1.5-2 March 6, 2012 DP(8)
