lei-overview(7)

LEI-OVERVIEW(7)

public-inbox user manual

LEI-OVERVIEW(7)

NAME

lei - an overview of lei

DESCRIPTION

lei(1) is a local email interface for public-inbox. This document provides some basic examples.

LEI STORE

lei has writable local storage based on public-inbox-v2-format(5). Commands will automatically initialize the store behind the scenes if needed, but you can call lei-init(1) directly if you want to use a store location other than the default "$XDG_DATA_HOME/lei/store".

The lei-import(1) command provides the primary interface for importing messages into the local storage. In addition, other commands, such as lei-q(1) and lei-blob(1), use the local store to memoize messages from remotes.

EXAMPLES

$ lei import mboxrd:t.mbox.gz: Import the messages from a gzipped mboxrd into the local storage.
$ lei blob 59ec517f9: Show message with the git blob OID of 59ec517f9. If a message with that OID isn't found, check if the current git repository has the blob, trying to reconstruct it from a message if needed.
$ lei blob 59ec517f9 | lei tag - -F eml +kw:flagged +L:next: Set the "flagged" keyword and "next" label on the message with the blob OID of 59ec517f9.

EXTERNALS

In addition to the above store, lei can make read-only queries to "externals": inboxes and external indices. An external can be registered by passing a URL or local path to lei-add-external(1). For existing local paths, the external needs to be indexed with public-inbox-index(1) (in the case of a regular inbox) or public-inbox-extindex(1) (in the case of an external index).

EXAMPLES

$ lei add-external https://public-inbox.org/meta/: Add a remote external for public-inbox's inbox.
$ lei add-external --mirror https://public-inbox.org/meta/ path: Clone <https://public-inbox.org/meta/> to "path", index it with public-inbox-index(1), and add it as a local external.

SEARCHING

The lei-q(1) command searches the local store and externals. The search prefixes match those available via public-inbox-httpd(1).

EXAMPLES

$ lei q s:lei s:skeleton: Search for messages whose subject includes "lei" and "skeleton".
$ lei q -t s:lei s:skeleton: Do the same, but also report unmatched messages that are in the same thread as a matched message.
$ lei q -t -o /tmp/mdir --mua=mutt s:lei s:skeleton: Write results to a Maildir at "mdir". Mutt will be invoked to open mfolder ("mutt -f %f") while results are being fetched and written.
$ lei q kw:flagged L:next: Search for all flagged messages that also have a "next" label.
$ lei p2q HEAD | lei q --stdin -tt -o /tmp/mdir: Search for messages that have post-image git blob IDs that match those of the current repository's HEAD commit, writing them to the Maildir directory "mdir" and flagging the messages that were an exact match.
$ git show -s HEAD | lei lcat -: Display a local message for the public-inbox link contained in a commit message.
$ lei q -f text m:MID | lei rediff -U5 -: Feed a message containing a diff to lei-rediff(1) to regenerate its diff with five context lines. Unless "--git-dir" is specified, this requires the current working directory to be within the associated code repository.

PERFORMANCE NOTES

Inline::C is recommended for performance. To enable it, create "~/.cache/public-inbox/inline-c/".

If Socket::MsgHdr is installed (libsocket-msghdr-perl in Debian), the first invocation of lei starts a daemon, reducing the startup cost of for future invocations (which is particularly important for Bash completion).

BASH COMPLETION

Preliminary Bash completion for lei is provided in "contrib/completion/". Contributions adding support for other shells, as well as improvements to the existing Bash completion, are welcome.

CONTACT

Feedback welcome via plain-text mail to <mailto:meta@public-inbox.org>

The mail archives are hosted at <https://public-inbox.org/meta/> and <http://4uok3hntl7oi7b4uf4rtfwefqeexfzil2w6kgk2jn5z2f764irre7byd.onion/meta/>

COPYRIGHT

License: AGPL-3.0+ <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.txt>

1993-10-02

public-inbox.git