ALI(1mh)

📦
version 1.8 · 4 versions
, in debian trixie, ubuntu noble, ubuntu questing, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

💖 ALI 💖 — like, the ali command from nmh, bestie

okay so real talk: this is the manual page for ali, and honestly? she's that girl. she lists your nmh mail aliases for you. that's the whole vibe. let's get into it 💅

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

ali [-help] [-version] [-alias aliasfile] [-list | -nolist] [-user |
     -nouser] [aliases ...]

like. look at her. so organized. so iconic. 🎀

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so ali goes digging through the mail alias files you named, looking for each of the aliases you gave her. then she builds a list of the addresses those aliases expand into and writes that list straight to standard output. no drama, no cap.

and if you give her, like, no arguments at all? she just outputs all the alias entries. generous queen. 👑

by default, when an alias expands to multiple addresses, those addresses get separated by commas and squished onto as few lines as possible. but if you hit her with the -list switch and an address expands to multiple addresses, then each address shows up on its own separate line. breathing room. self-care. periodt. 🦋

now the -user switch flips the whole thing. it directs ali to do her processing in an inverted fashion — instead of listing the addresses that each alias you gave her expands to, she'll list the aliases that expand to each given address. reversed. remixed. main character energy fr fr. 🔥

the files specified by the profile entry “Aliasfile” get read, plus any extra alias files you toss in with the -alias aliasfile switch. every alias is processed exactly as described in mh-alias(5). iykyk 💜

🗂️ FILES 🗂️

okay so alias files get looked up in multiple locations, and the rules go like this:

  • if the pathname is absolute, or it starts with “.” or “..”, it gets accessed directly. straight up. no detours.
  • otherwise, tilde expansion is done on usernames, and then the files get searched for in the user's Mail directory as specified in their profile.
  • if it's not found there either, then the directory /etc/nmh gets checked. last resort bestie. 🙈

and also:

  • $HOME/.mh_profile — the user's profile. 💖

🎀 PROFILE COMPONENTS 🎀

  • Path: — to determine the user's nmh directory
  • Aliasfile: — for a default alias file

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

mh-alias(5)

⭐ DEFAULTS ⭐

  • aliasfile — /etc/nmh/MailAliases
  • -nolist
  • -nouser

💀 CONTEXT 💀

None

like, literally none. nothing. empty. she said "no context, i'm mysterious." 🧚

and that's the whole page, bestie!! this lil manual is from nmh-1.8 and it was dated 2013-12-05 — vintage, honestly, but she still ate. 💅✨🫶🍓

📦 where this page comes from