If the switch -component is given, then the component name is displayed along with the profile components value. This can be disabled with the switch -nocomponent.

If more than one component is specified in the components list, then the switch -component is on by default. If only one component is specified, then the switch -nocomponent is on by default.

If -all is specified, then all components in the nmh profile are displayed and other arguments are ignored.

mhparam can provide other information, such as the nmh version identifier, the locations of the nmh etcdir and libdir install directories, all proc settings, and the datalocking method described in the mh-profile(5) man page. Information about the configuration of the nmh installation is also available, including the default mail spool locking method. To test whether the configuration includes support for SASL, TLS, and iconv(3), the following commands, respectively, will output a non-null string to indicate support:

mhparam sasl
mhparam tls
mhparam iconv

Conversely, no output means that the specified support is not included. The -debug switch displays all such other information available from mhparam.

Examples:

% mhparam path
Mail
% mhparam mhlproc
/usr/lib/mh/mhl
% mhparam -component Path
Path: Mail
% mhparam AliasFile rmmproc
AliasFile: aliases
rmmproc: rmmproc
% mhparam -nocomponent AliasFile rmmproc
aliases
rmmproc
% mhparam path nonexistent context
Path: Mail
context: context
% mhparam version
nmh-1.6
% mhparam etcdir
/etc/nmh
% mhparam libdir
/usr/lib/mh
% mhparam spoollocking
fcntl
% mhparam datalocking
fcntl
% mhparam sasl
cyrus_sasl
% mhparam tls
tls
% mhparam iconv
iconv

mhparam is also useful in backquoted operations:

% fgrep cornell.edu `mhpath +`/`mhparam aliasfile`