neubauer@bsu-cs.UUCP (Paul Neubauer) (01/28/88)
Does anybody know if vms has provision for a logical name such as MAIL$PERSONAL_NAME which would set the personal_name field for mail, but only for the process? It would be nice to be able to vary the personal_name that shows up on the 'from' line so that different individuals using a shared account can have their own names there. Among other things, this would make it much easier to tell who sent what messages to whom. We are not worried about things like forgery, just making life a little bit easier. What I am looking for is something that can be used like MAIL$EDIT, which can be set so that different individuals using the same account can use their preferred editors in mail. One person here has suggested running mail from a command procedure that sets MAIL$INIT to a different and suitable mail command file for each person, so that the last person to use the mail will reset the personal_name for all processes belonging to the account until the next person uses it. This strikes me as a not-very-clean solution (e.g., what happens if two people are using mail at overlapping times?). Please don't just tell me RTFM. I have searched for an answer in our manuals, and either we do not have the right manuals, or it is not there, or I have simply not managed to find it. (I admit that I have also not managed to find any reference to MAIL$EDIT, and I DO know that that exists, but that piece of negative information still does not help me determine which of the above 3 alternatives is applicable.) If you do want to tell me RTFM, please at least include the reference to the appropriate location in the FM and the correct answer in case the first alternative is what prevails at our site. Thanks in advance. -- Paul Neubauer neubauer@bsu-cs.UUCP <backbones>!{iuvax,pur-ee,uunet}!bsu-cs!neubauer