[comp.mail.mh] Seek internal documentation

donovan@SPUNKY.CS.NYU.EDU (Kevin Donovan) (02/13/91)

We recently upgraded to version 6.7, and I am now unable to get new
mail into my inbox.  If I try running `inc' directly from a Unix
shell, I get the error message `install-mh: invocation error'.

I tried looking at the source code, but it's formidable.  I found that
the error message itself seems to occur because my file `.mh_profile'
is already defined, but I can't find out why inc calls install-mh.  In
fact, I can't even find out _where_ the call to install-mh is made.
Within the source program inc.c, a macro (I think it's a macro)
`mts_init' is used, but I can't find where it's defined.

I have looked at my environment variables, and they all seem to be
correct.  I think the problem is too obscure for anybody to say much
about it based on the information given here, but would someone be
able to point me to where I could find documentation about the
internal structures and variables used by MH, so that I could try to
track it down myself?

Thank you.

jromine@buckaroo.ics.uci.edu (John Romine) (02/14/91)

donovan@cs.nyu.edu writes:
>We recently upgraded to version 6.7....  If I try running `inc'...
>I get the error message `install-mh: invocation error'.

>I tried looking at the source code, but it's formidable.  I found that
>the error message itself seems to occur because my file `.mh_profile'
>is already defined, but I can't find out why inc calls install-mh.

sbr/m_getdefs.c calls install-mh.  This happens if MH can't open your
$HOME/.mh_profile.

>I have looked at my environment variables, and they all seem to be
>correct.

How have you built MH?  install-mh can be called in other cases if
you have COMPAT defined.  Also, if you define environment variables
that MH uses (like MHFD) you could confuse it.

From what you said, it sounds to me like you have a .mh_profile, but
it's protected against you.
--
John Romine