Interactive Shell

Start an interactive SPL2 REPL with tab completion, query history, and dot commands.

lynxdb shell [flags]

Flags

Flag	Short	Default	Description
--file	-f		File mode (load file into ephemeral engine)
--since	-s	15m	Default time range for queries

Examples

# Connect to server
lynxdb shell

# Query a local file
lynxdb shell --file access.log

# Default time range
lynxdb shell --since 1h

Console Output

  LynxDB v0.1.0 — Interactive Shell
  Connected to http://localhost:3100
  Type .help for commands, Ctrl+D to exit.

lynxdb> level=error | stats count by source
  source          count
  nginx           340
  api-gateway     120

  2 rows — 45ms

lynxdb>

Features

Tab Completion

The shell tab-completes:

• SPL2 command names (stats, where, eval, sort, etc.)
• Aggregation function names (count, avg, sum, p99, etc.)
• Field names from the server's field catalog

Query History

• Navigate previous queries with the up/down arrow keys
• History is persisted to ~/.local/share/lynxdb/history
• History survives between shell sessions

Multi-Line Input

End a line with | to continue on the next line:

lynxdb> level=error |
   ...> stats count by source |
   ...> sort -count |
   ...> head 10

Dot Commands

Meta-operations available inside the shell:

Command	Description
.help	Show help
.quit / .exit	Exit the shell (or Ctrl+D)
.clear	Clear the screen
.history	Show query history
.fields	List known fields (server mode)
.sources	List event sources (server mode)
.explain <query>	Show query execution plan
.set since <val>	Change default time range

Examples

lynxdb> .fields
FIELD          TYPE       COVERAGE
_time          timestamp    100%
host           string       100%
level          string        95%

lynxdb> .set since 1h
Default time range set to 1h

lynxdb> .explain level=error | stats count by source
Plan:
  FROM -> WHERE -> STATS
Estimated cost: low
Fields read: level, source

lynxdb> .history
  1  level=error | stats count by source
  2  source=nginx | top 10 uri
  3  | timechart count span=5m

lynxdb> .quit

File Mode

When started with --file, the shell loads the file into an ephemeral in-memory engine. All queries run locally without a server:

lynxdb shell --file /var/log/nginx/access.log

  LynxDB v0.1.0 — Interactive Shell
  Loaded: /var/log/nginx/access.log (50,000 events)
  Type .help for commands, Ctrl+D to exit.

lynxdb> | stats count by status
  status    count
  200       45000
  404       3000
  500       2000

See Also

• query for one-shot queries
• Shortcuts for quick access commands
• SPL2 Overview for the query language reference