1 \cfg{man-identity}{nntpid}{1}{2004-11-21}{Simon Tatham}{Simon Tatham}
3 \title Man page for \cw{nntpid}
7 \cw{nntpid} - retrieve a single article from a news server
11 \c nntpid [ -v ] [ -d ] message-id
12 \e bbbbbb bb bb iiiiiiiiii
13 \c nntpid [ -v ] [ -d ] newsgroup-name article-number
14 \e bbbbbb bb bb iiiiiiiiiiiiii iiiiiiiiiiiiii
18 \cw{nntpid} makes a connection to a news server, retrieves a single
19 article, and displays it.
21 You can specify the article you want by either:
23 \b giving its Message-ID. Message-IDs are globally unique, so you
24 don't need to know which newsgroup the article was in. Also, they do
25 not vary between news servers.
27 \b giving a newsgroup name and an article number within that
28 newsgroup. Article numbers are assigned internally by a particular
29 news server, so they will be different on other servers carrying the
32 By default, \cw{nntpid} will try to display the article using a
33 pager (\cw{more}(1), unless you have specified an alternative in the
34 environment variable \cw{PAGER}). This is partly for convenience,
35 and partly a mild security measure: it gives you some protection
36 against the news article potentially containing control sequences
37 that cause unexpected behaviour in your terminal. If \cw{nntpid}
38 detects that its standard output is not a terminal, however, it will
39 bypass the pager and just write out the article directly.
43 If you specify one argument, \cw{nntpid} assumes it is a Message-ID.
44 The angle brackets that usually delimit Message-IDs are optional;
45 \cw{nntpid} will strip them off if it sees them, and will not
46 complain if it does not.
48 If you specify two arguments, \cw{nntpid} will interpret the first
49 as a newsgroup name, and the second as an article number.
55 \dd Verbose mode. In this mode, \cw{nntpid} will log its entire
56 conversation with the news server on standard error.
60 \dd Direct output. In this mode, \cw{nntpid} will write the article
61 straight to standard output without bothering to try using a pager.
65 Currently, the only form of authentication supported by \cw{nntpid}
66 is \cw{AUTHINFO GENERIC}, using the environment variable
67 \cw{NNTPAUTH}. It will only attempt this if it receives a 480
68 response from the news server; if your news server never sends 480
69 then \cw{nntpid} will never even look at \cw{NNTPAUTH}.
73 \cw{nntpid} is free software, distributed under the MIT licence.
74 Type \cw{nntpid --licence} to see the full licence text.