# Get Information with scan Format Strings

The Section MH Format Strings showed how to write format files for scan. Format files, or format strings, are a great way to get information about mail messages for a shell program. For instance, here's a a format string that prints the message number in a field of width 4, a space, then either the `Sender:` (if the message has one) or the `From:`. It formats the addresses with the `%(friendly)` function, which gives a "nice" output when it can.

        $ scan -format "%4(msg) %<{sender}%(friendly{sender})%|%(friendly{from})%>"
          46 "Don C. Meach"
          47 mh-users-request@ics.uci.edu
          48 Jerry Peek

You could use a scan format string like that to write a simple loop that processes mail messages automatically. The loop below uses the (mbox) function to get the address without the hostname. (There are more efficient ways to process incoming mail -- see the Chapter Processing New Mail Automatically.)

        msgfrom="%(msg) %<{sender}%(mbox{sender})%|%(mbox{from})%>"
            ...
        scan -format "$msgfrom" |
        while read msgnum from
        do
            # DON'T READ ANYTHING FROM steveq; refile ALL mh-users MAIL.
            # LEAVE OTHER MESSAGES ALONE:
            case "$from" in
            steveq) rmm $msgnum ;;
            mh-users) refile $msgnum +mh-users ;;
            esac
        done

This is using a Bourne shell while loop with its standard input taken from the pipe (from the scan command). The read command reads a line of input; it puts the first word (here, the message number) in a shell variable named msgnum, and the rest (the local part of the address) goes into the variable called from. Then, a case structure checks who sent the message and does the right thing with it.