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                              Here Documents
            writing commands that require more than one line

Many Majordomo commands can be written on a single line, for example:
   help admin_commands

Other commands can sometimes require information that spans several or
dozens of lines.  For example, the newinfo command is used to store a
welcome message that is seen by new subscribers:

newinfo cabbage <<ABC123
Welcome to the cabbage mailing list.

The cabbage family has many members, including
collard greens, kale, broccoli, and cauliflower.
ABC123

In this case, the "here document" is the text of the welcome message
that appears between the first command line and the final "ABC123".  The
two "ABC123" markers are called "tags."  The two tags must be identical.
The tags must conform to the following rules:

  * Tags always begin with three capital letters.

  * Following the first three letters can be any number of
    capital letters or digits.

  * The first tag must be preceded by (only) two less-than symbols,
    '<<'.  The less-than symbols must be separated from the preceding
    part of the command by one or more spaces or tabs.

  * The second tag must be on a line by itself, without leading
    or trailing spaces or tabs.

Usually, the contents of a here document are handled just as you
type them, but there are some exceptions:

  * In the message_footer and message_fronter configuration settings, 
    lines beginning with hyphens are treated specially.  Please see
    "help configset_message_footer" and "help configset_message_fronter"
    for more information.

  * Any line in a here document that ends with a single backslash '\'
    will be catenated with the next line.  This can have unusual effects
    unless some effort is made to double the backslashes, '\\', in
    which case the extra backslash is removed, and the lines are not
    catenated.  (This does not apply to commands that you type when
    you are using the mj_shell program interactively.)

The contents of the here document will vary from command to command.
For instance, a list administrator using the subscribe command can
place a list of addresses in a here document, to subscribe more than
one person at a time:

subscribe-noinform cabbage <<BIG
Jane <sister@example.com>
Joe <brother@example.com>
BIG

Here is a summary of what here documents contain in different 
Majordomo commands.

  * accept, reject          a list of token identifiers.
  * configdef, configshow   a list of settings or setting categories.
  * configset               the new value of a configuration setting.
  * createlist              e-mail addresses of the list owners.
  * post                    the contents of a mail message.
  * newfaq, newinfo         the new contents of a document.
  * newintro, put           the new contents of a document.
  * subscribe, unsubscribe  e-mail addresses of subscribers.
  * set, show               e-mail addresses of subscribers.
  * register, unregister    e-mail addresses of subscribers.

Here documents are supported for commands sent in e-mail messages,
and also by the mj_shell command-line program.


See Also:
   help admin  (an introduction to list administration)
   help configset_message_footer
   help configset_message_fronter
   help mj_shell (the command-line interface)
   help newinfo

This is the "here_document" help document for 
Majordomo 2, version 0.1200401130.

For a list of all help documents, send the following command:
   help topics
in the body of a message to mj2@smoe.org.

For assistance, please contact the smoe.org administrators.

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