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MBLAZE(7) Miscellaneous Information Manual MBLAZE(7)
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NAME
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mblaze – introduction to the mblaze message system
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DESCRIPTION
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The mblaze message system is a set of Unix utilities for processing and
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interacting with mail messages which are stored in maildir folders.
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Its design is roughly inspired by MH, the RAND Message Handling System,
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but it is a complete implementation from scratch.
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mblaze consists of these Unix utilities that each do one job:
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maddr(1) extract mail addresses from messages
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magrep(1) search messages matching a pattern
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mbnc(1) bounce messages
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mcom(1) compose and send messages
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mdeliver(1) deliver messages or import mbox file
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mdirs(1) list maildir folders, recursively
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mexport(1) export messages as mbox file
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mflag(1) manipulate maildir message flags
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mflow(1) reflow format=flowed plain text messages
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mfwd(1) forward messages
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mgenmid(1) generate a Message-ID
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mhdr(1) print message headers
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minc(1) incorporate new messages
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mless(1) conveniently read messages in less(1)
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mlist(1) list and filter messages
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mmime(1) create MIME messages
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mmkdir(1) create new maildir folders
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mpick(1) advanced message filter
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mrefile(1) move or copy messages between maildir folders
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mrep(1) reply to messages
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mscan(1) generate one-line message summaries
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msed(1) manipulate message headers
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mseq(1) manipulate message sequences
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mshow(1) render messages and extract MIME parts
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msort(1) sort messages
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mthread(1) arrange messages into discussions
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mblaze is a classic command line MUA and has no features for receiving or
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transferring messages; you can operate on messages in a local maildir
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spool, or fetch your messages using fdm(1), getmail(1), offlineimap(1),
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or similar utilities, and send it using dma(8), msmtp(1), sendmail(8), as
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provided by OpenSMTPD, Postfix, or similar.
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mblaze operates directly on maildir folders and doesn't use its own
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caches or databases. There is no setup needed for many uses. All
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utilities have been written with performance in mind. Enumeration of all
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messages in a maildir is avoided unless necessary, and then optimized to
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limit syscalls. Parsing message metadata is optimized to limit I/O
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requests. Initial operations on a large maildir may feel slow, but as
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soon as they are in the file system cache, everything is blazingly fast.
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The utilities are written to be memory efficient (i.e. not wasteful), but
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whole messages are assumed to fit into RAM easily (one at a time).
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mblaze has been written from scratch and is now well tested, but it is
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not 100% RFC-conforming (which is neither worth it, nor desirable).
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There may be issues with very old, nonconforming, messages.
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mblaze is written in portable C, using only POSIX functions (apart from a
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tiny Linux-only optimization), and has no external dependencies. It
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supports MIME and more than 7-bit messages (everything the host iconv(3)
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can decode). It assumes you work in a UTF-8 environment. mblaze works
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well with other Unix utilities such as mairix(1), mu(1), or
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offlineimap(1).
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EXAMPLES
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mblaze utilities are designed to be composed together in a pipe. They
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are suitable for interactive use and for scripting, and integrate well
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into a Unix workflow.
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For example, you could decide you want to look at all unseen messages in
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your INBOX, oldest first.
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mlist -s ~/Maildir/INBOX | msort -d | mscan
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To operate on a set of messages in multiple steps, you can save it as a
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sequence, e.g. add a call to ‘mseq -S’ to the above command:
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mlist -s ~/Maildir/INBOX | msort -d | mseq -S | mscan
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Now mscan will show message numbers and you could look at the first five
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messages at once, for example:
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mshow 1:5
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Likewise, you could decide to incorporate (by moving from new to cur) all
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new messages in all folders, thread it and look at it interactively:
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mdirs ~/Maildir | xargs minc | mthread | mless
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Or you could list the attachments of the 20 largest messages in your
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INBOX:
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mlist ~/Maildir/INBOX | msort -S | tail -20 | mshow -t
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Or apply the patches from the current message:
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mshow -O. '*.diff' | patch
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As usual with pipes, the sky is the limit.
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CONCEPTS
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mblaze deals with messages (which are files), folders (which are maildir
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folders), sequences (which are newline-separated lists of messages,
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possibly saved on disk in ${MBLAZE:-$HOME/.mblaze}/seq), and the current
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message (kept as a symlink in ${MBLAZE:-$HOME/.mblaze}/cur).
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Messages in the saved sequence can be referred to using special syntax as
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explained in mmsg(7).
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Many utilities have a default behavior when used interactively from a
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terminal (e.g. operate on the current message or the current sequence).
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For scripting, you must make these arguments explicit.
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For configuration, see mblaze-profile(5).
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SEE ALSO
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mailx(1), mblaze-profile(5), nmh(7)
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AUTHORS
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Leah Neukirchen <leah@vuxu.org>
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There is a mailing list available at mblaze@googlegroups.com (to
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subscribe, send a message to mblaze+subscribe@googlegroups.com); archives
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are available at https://inbox.vuxu.org/mblaze/. There also is an IRC
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channel #vuxu on irc.libera.chat. Please report security-related bugs
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directly to the author.
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LICENSE
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mblaze is in the public domain.
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To the extent possible under law, the creator of this work has waived all
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copyright and related or neighboring rights to this work.
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http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
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Void Linux January 18, 2020 Void Linux
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