From Elendor
From the writing of a +mail message to the actual reading of the written
message, TWO rounds of function evaluation occur. (For what "evaluation"
means, see HELP functions and HELP substitutions.) You can choose to
inhibit none, one, or both of these rounds of evaluation. This is
accomplished by prefixing the "-" command (see HELP mail writing) with
none, one, or two "]" characters, respectively. (See HELP ] for more
information.) The following examples will illustrate how this works.
If you type
-[name(%#)]
then that means, "Evaluate the function [name(%#)] and insert the _evaluated_
result into the +mail message." Thus your name, at the time you write the
message, will be literally inserted into the text. Alternatively,
]-[name(%#)]
means, "Insert the function [name(%#)] into the text and evaluate it whenever
the message is read." So the name of the person reading the message will
appear whenever someone reads the message.
Finally, contrast the previous two examples with
]]-[name(%#)]
which means, "Insert the _escaped_ function [name(%#)] into the message text,
and therefore print it out literally without evaluating it when the
message is read."
To sum it all up, if your name is Foo and you type the three commands
above to write the text of a message and then send it to Bar, then when
Bar reads the message, (s)he will see:
========================================
Message ID #: 123456
FROM: Foo
TO: Bar
MESSAGE:
Foo Bar [name(%#)]
========================================