READNEWS
Section: Misc. Reference Manual Pages (1CN)
Updated: 16 April 1995
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NAME
readnews - read news articles
SYNOPSIS
readnews
[
-n
newsgroups ]
[
-d
commands ]
[
-i
] [
-c
] [
-l
] [
-p
] [
-C
] [
-L
] [
-Agroup
] [
-Dgroup
]
DESCRIPTION
Readnews
without arguments enters command mode,
which allows printing of unread articles.
This is the normal way of using
readnews.
Readnews
maintains a
.newsrc
file in the user's home directory that specifies
all news articles already read.
It is updated at the end of each reading session.
Some useful functions are available which don't use command mode.
The flags for these are:
- -c
-
Check if there is news, and if so print `You have news.'.
- -C
-
Check if there is news, and print the groups and number of
articles in each group to be read.
- -l
-
List the titles of available news articles.
- -p
-
Print all articles on standard output,
and update
newsrc.
- -L
-
Print the newsgroup subscription list.
- -Agroup
-
Add
group
to the subscription list.
- -Dgroup
-
Delete
group
from the subscription list.
The remaining flags mostly determine article selection,
and may also appear in the
.newsrc
file.
Options may be specified in the
.newsrc
file by entering lines prefixed with the word `options',
followed by the options arguments.
This is most useful with the
-n
flag, specifying the usual groups one wishes to subscribe to.
- -n newsgroups
-
Select all articles belonging to
newsgroups.
Newsgroups
is a comma separated list of newsgroup names.
The character `!' may be used to exclude certain groups,
and the word `all' can be used to match any group.
e.g. `-n all,!net.jokes'
- -i
-
Ignore
.newsrc
file. It is not read or updated.
This allows selection of articles that have already been read.
- -d commands
-
Disable the
commands.
Commands
is a string of command characters (see the next section);
entering any command beginning with any of them will result in
an error message.
Some overall parameters are set by a control file,
/etc/news/readnews.ctl,
which contains control lines (each a keyword followed by white space followed
by a value) and comments (each starting with `#').
If no
-n
option is specified, either by the user or his
.newsrc
file, the value specified on the
defsub
line of the control file is used as the list of newsgroups to be presented.
A single mandatory newsgroup may be specified as the value of the
mustsub
control line; in the absence of a command-line
-n
(not one from a
.newsrc),
that newsgroup is always presented to the user even if he did not ask for it.
Both
defsub
and
mustsub
default to ``general''.
COMMANDS
This section details the commands available when
readnews
is in command mode (no
-clpsC
arguments).
The simplest way of using this mode, is to enter RETURN after every
prompt.
This will present to the user, a short heading for an article, then a prompt.
Typing RETURN again will print the article body.
Typing RETURN yet again will print the next heading, and so on.
If having read the heading, you don't wish to read the article, you may
type `n' (or `+' or ';') which will take you directly to the next heading.
An article is treated as having been read, if either you have seen
the article body, or typed `n' to skip over it.
A number of commands operate on the `current' article.
This is defined as the article whose header you have most recently seen.
The commands to read news are:
- RETURN
-
Either print the current article,
or go to the next article and print its header.
- n or + or ;
-
Go to the next article and print its header.
- .
-
Print the current article.
- -
-
Go back to the previous article. This is a toggle, typing it
twice returns you to the original article.
- number
-
Go to the article
number
in the current newsgroup.
Like the `-' command,
you always return to the original article
after reading the selected article.
- s [file]
-
Save the current article, appending it to the specified file
(default
$HOME/articles).
- h
-
Print the current header (slightly more verbose than normal header).
- H
-
Print the current header in full (very verbose).
- N [newsgroup]
-
Go to the next newsgroup, or to the specified newsgroup.
(A specified newsgroup must be in the
-n
list, if any, or subscribed to.)
- U
-
Unsubscribe from this newsgroup, and go to the next newsgroup.
- !command
-
Shell escape.
Command
is executed.
If
command
is `!'
the last escape command is executed.
- q or EOT
-
Quit.
The
.newsrc
file will be updated provided the flag
-i
was not specified.
- x
-
Exit.
.newsrc
is left unchanged (as if no articles had been read).
Some commands are available to send/reply or post news articles:
- r
-
Reply to sender of the current article by mail.
Readnews
sets up the appropriate headers, and then calls
mail(1)
(or $MAILER, if there is such an environment variable)
to send a reply to the sender.
If there is no
mailvia
line in the control file, the address is taken from the ``From'' header
of the article, and is in Internet form.
If the value in the
mailvia
line is ``<path>'', the address is taken from the ``Path'' header and is
in UUCPnet form.
If the value of
mailvia
is something else, the ``From'' address is transformed to UUCPnet syntax
(``site.x.y!user'' rather than ``user@site.x.y''), and the
mailvia
value is prepended to it, with an intervening ``!''.
- f
-
Post a followup to the current article.
Readnews
sets up the appropriate headers, and then calls
postnews(1CN)
to post the followup article.
- p
-
Post an article on a new topic.
postnews(1CN)
is called to post the new article, in the current newsgroup by default.
In order to permanently resubscribe to a newsgroup denied by `U',
it is necessary to understand
the format of the
.newsrc
file.
The
.newsrc
file consists of two types of lines:
- option lines
-
These start with the word `options' and contain the same arguments
as the
readnews
command on the command line.
- read newsgroup lines
-
These have the format <newsgroup>`:' <number>, where
<number> represents the last item number seen in that particular newsgroup.
If the newsgroup has been unsubscribed, the `:' is replaced by a `!'.
To resubscribe the `!' must be changed back to a `:'.
EXAMPLES
To invoke
readnews
for ``read only'' access to specified newsgroups,
with the user unable to do anything but read those groups,
a shell file might do:
readnews -d rfps!U -n newsgroups
which disables responses (r, f, and p),
saving of copies (s),
shell escapes (!),
and unsubscribing (U).
FILES
$HOME/.newsrc options and list of previously read articles
/etc/news/active current newsgroups
/etc/news/readnews.ctlcontrol file
/etc/news/readnews.helphelp file
/usr/libexec/news/inject/postnewsfor postings
SEE ALSO
postnews(1CN), mail(1), ed(1)
HISTORY
Originally written by
Michael Rourke, University of N.S.W (decvax!mulga!michaelr:elecvax).
Modified and simplified for the C News project.
BUGS
The
mustsub
control line really ought to be able to specify a subscription,
i.e. multiple groups.
Control characters other than tab and backspace are turned into `#'
when displaying article bodies.
This heads off letter bombs at the price of interfering with use of
non-ASCII character sets.
Cleanup of command-line syntax has eliminated the old
-s
option in favor of
-L,
-A,
and
-D.
This is a change for the better, but an incompatible one.
The
-A
and
-D
options
have a nasty tendency to dump core;
they should be fixed or deleted.
This program is about as simple as they come.
Almost any seasoned news user will want something more complex.
Index
- NAME
-
- SYNOPSIS
-
- DESCRIPTION
-
- COMMANDS
-
- EXAMPLES
-
- FILES
-
- SEE ALSO
-
- HISTORY
-
- BUGS
-
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