---
name: "mkline"
section: "8"
platform: "linux"
package: "smail"
version: "3.2.0.115-7.1"
release: "Debian 4.0 (Etch)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/mkline"
---

# mkline(8)

fold an alias file, paths file or mailing list into one-line records

## NAME

mkline - fold an alias file, paths file or mailing list into one-line records

## SYNOPSIS

**/usr/lib/smail/mkline** \[ **-ltn** \] \[ *file* ...  \]

## DESCRIPTION

*Mkline* takes alias files, path files or mailing list files as input and produces output records containing one complete entry per line with all comments and whitespace replaced by zero or one spaces. One space is used if the concatenation of two tokens would otherwise cause ambiguity. For mailing lists, the **-l** flag should be specified and the output will be a list of addresses. Otherwise, the input is assumed to be alias files or path files and the output is single line entries, with the key always separated from the data by a single colon character (\`\`:'').

If no input files are specified, the standard input is read.  In addition, if a filename of **-** is given, the standard input is inserted at that point.

If the **-t** flag is specified, then an ASCII *TAB* character separates key from data, rather than a colon character.

If the **-n** flag is specified, then keys are not extracted from the input, so that all tokens pass through unchanged, with comments and whitespace still being reduced to the minimum required for unambiguous tokens.

The **-t** and **-n** flags have no effect when processing mailing lists.

## EXAMPLES

If the file *aliases* contains:

```
Postmaster:	hustead		# Ted Hustead, jr.
UUCP-Postmasters:	tron, chongo	# namei contacts
	yamato	# kremvax contact
tron:	tron@namei.uucp (Ronald S. Karr)
yamato:	yamato@kremvax.ussr.comm (Yamato T. Yankelovich)
chongo:	chongo@eek.uts.amdahl.com (Landon Curt Noll)
```

then the command *mkline aliases* will produce:

```
Postmaster:hustead
UUCP-Postmasters:tron,chongo yamato
tron:tron@namei.uucp
yamato:yamato@kremvax.ussr.comm
chongo:chongo@eek.uts.amdahl.com
```

As an example of using *mkline* to compress mailing lists, consider the mailing list:

```
tron@namei.uucp,tron@uts.amdahl.com	# Ronald S. Karr
yamato@kremvax.ussr.comm	# Yamato T. Yankelovich
chongo@eek.uts.amdahl.com	# Landon Curt Noll
Wilt . (the Stilt) Chamberlain@NBA.US	# RFC822 doc example
```

The command *mkline -l* applied to this list will produce:

```
tron@namei.uucp
tron@uts.amdahl.com
yamato@kremvax.ussr.comm
chongo@eek.uts.amdahl.com
Wilt.Chamberlain@NBA.US
```

## SEE ALSO

[*mksort*(8)](/mksort/8.md), [*mkdbm*(8)](/mkdbm/8.md), [*smail*(5)](/smail/5.md), [*smail*(8)](/smail/8.md), [*pathalias*(8)](/pathalias/8.md).

## COPYRIGHT

*Copyright* (C) 1987, 1988 Ronald S. Karr and Landon Curt Noll\
 *Copyright* (C) 1992 Ronald S. Karr

See a file *COPYING*, distributed with the source code, or type *smail -bc*, to view distribution rights and restrictions associated with this software.