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1 | \cfg{man-identity}{nntpid}{1}{2004-11-21}{Simon Tatham}{Simon Tatham} |
2 | |
3 | \title Man page for \cw{nntpid} |
4 | |
5 | \U NAME |
6 | |
7 | \cw{nntpid} - retrieve a single article from a news server |
8 | |
9 | \U SYNOPSIS |
10 | |
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11 | \c nntpid [ -v ] [ -d ] article [ article... ] |
12 | \e bbbbbb bb bb iiiiiii iiiiiii |
13 | \c nntpid [ -v ] [ -d ] |
14 | \e bbbbbb bb bb |
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15 | \c nntpid [ -v ] -a newsgroup-name |
16 | \e bbbbbb bb bb iiiiiiiiiiiiii |
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17 | |
18 | \U DESCRIPTION |
19 | |
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20 | \cw{nntpid} makes a connection to a news server, retrieves one or |
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21 | more articles, and displays them. |
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22 | |
23 | You can specify the article you want by either: |
24 | |
25 | \b giving its Message-ID. Message-IDs are globally unique, so you |
26 | don't need to know which newsgroup the article was in. Also, they do |
27 | not vary between news servers. |
28 | |
29 | \b giving a newsgroup name and an article number within that |
30 | newsgroup. Article numbers are assigned internally by a particular |
31 | news server, so they will be different on other servers carrying the |
32 | same group. |
33 | |
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34 | By default, \cw{nntpid} will try to display the article using a |
35 | pager (\cw{more}(1), unless you have specified an alternative in the |
36 | environment variable \cw{PAGER}). This is partly for convenience, |
37 | and partly a mild security measure: it gives you some protection |
38 | against the news article potentially containing control sequences |
39 | that cause unexpected behaviour in your terminal. If \cw{nntpid} |
40 | detects that its standard output is not a terminal, however, it will |
41 | bypass the pager and just write out the article directly. |
42 | |
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43 | There are a couple of alternative mode of operation. In one, enabled |
44 | by the \cw{-a} option, \cw{nntpid} retrieves \e{all} available |
45 | articles in the group and writes them to standard output in \cw{mbox} |
46 | format. In the other, enabled with \cw{-b}, \cw{nntpid} simply prints |
47 | the lowest and highest article numbers currently available in that |
48 | group from the news server. |
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49 | |
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50 | The location of the news server is obtained by reading the |
51 | environment variable \cw{NNTPSERVER}, or failing that the file |
52 | \cw{/etc/nntpserver}. |
53 | |
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54 | \U ARGUMENTS |
55 | |
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56 | \cw{nntpid} will attempt to interpret its argument list as specifying |
57 | a series of news articles, as follows: |
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58 | |
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59 | \b An argument containing an @ sign will be parsed as a Message-ID. |
60 | The angle brackets that usually delimit Message-IDs are optional; |
61 | \cw{nntpid} will strip them off if it sees them, and will not complain |
62 | if it does not. If the angle brackets are present, anything outside |
63 | them will also be discarded. |
64 | |
65 | \b Otherwise, an argument containing whitespace or a colon will be |
66 | parsed as a group name and an article number. |
67 | |
68 | \b Otherwise, two successive arguments will be treated as a group name |
69 | and an article number. |
70 | |
71 | For example, the following invocations should all behave identically. |
72 | (Single quotes are intended to represent POSIX shell quoting, not part |
73 | of the command line as it reaches \cw{nntpid}.) |
74 | |
75 | \c $ nntpid '<foo.bar@baz.quux>' misc.test 1234 |
76 | \e bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb |
77 | \c $ nntpid 'foo.bar@baz.quux' misc.test:1234 |
78 | \e bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb |
79 | \c $ nntpid 'wibble <foo.bar@baz.quux> blah' 'misc.test 1234' |
80 | \e bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb |
81 | |
82 | If \cw{nntpid} is given no arguments at all, it will read from |
83 | standard input. Every line it reads will be interpreted as described |
84 | above, except that whitespace will also be trimmed from the start and |
85 | end of the line first. |
86 | |
87 | If you provide the \cw{-a} option (see below), none of the above |
88 | applies. Instead, \cw{nntpid} will expect exactly one command-line |
89 | argument, which it will treat as a newsgroup name. |
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90 | |
91 | \U OPTIONS |
92 | |
93 | \dt \cw{-v} |
94 | |
95 | \dd Verbose mode. In this mode, \cw{nntpid} will log its entire |
96 | conversation with the news server on standard error. |
97 | |
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98 | \dt \cw{-d} |
99 | |
100 | \dd Direct output. In this mode, \cw{nntpid} will write the article |
101 | straight to standard output without bothering to try using a pager. |
102 | |
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103 | \dt \cw{-a} |
104 | |
105 | \dd Retrieve all articles from the given newsgroup. In this mode, |
106 | \cw{nntpid} will always write straight to standard output (so the |
107 | \cw{-d} option is unnecessary). |
108 | |
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109 | \dt \cw{-b} |
110 | |
111 | \dd Print the current bounds on that group's article numbers. The |
112 | output is one line consisting of a minimum and maximum article number. |
113 | (Not every article in that range will necessarily actually exist: a |
114 | cancelled article will still use up a space in the numbering range.) |
115 | |
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116 | \U AUTHENTICATION |
117 | |
118 | Currently, the only form of authentication supported by \cw{nntpid} |
119 | is \cw{AUTHINFO GENERIC}, using the environment variable |
120 | \cw{NNTPAUTH}. It will only attempt this if it receives a 480 |
121 | response from the news server; if your news server never sends 480 |
122 | then \cw{nntpid} will never even look at \cw{NNTPAUTH}. |
123 | |
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124 | \U LICENCE |
125 | |
126 | \cw{nntpid} is free software, distributed under the MIT licence. |
127 | Type \cw{nntpid --licence} to see the full licence text. |
128 | |
129 | \versionid $Id$ |