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1996-10-31
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330 lines
B I N A R Y N E W S G A T H E R E R
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Copyright 1996 by Crown Software
Phil Crown
pcrown@airmail.net
http://web2.airmail.net/pcrown/
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES,
INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL,
SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO,
PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS;
OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY,
WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR
OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF
ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
Contents
=-=-=-=-
1. Overview
2 System Requirements
3. Quick Start
4. Configuration File
5. Command Line Options
6. Operation
7. File Naming Mechanism
8. Problems
9. Future versions
10. Registration
11. History
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1. Overview
Binary News Gatherer is an OS/2 text mode application for downloading an
overview and selected articles from binary news groups via NNTP.
See "History" at the end of this document for recent changes.
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2. System Requirements
This program uses longfilenames, therefore requires HPFS.
OS/2 Warp IAK (so32dll.dll and tcp32dll.dll).
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3. Quick Start
Place ocli.dll in a directory in your LIBPATH, or run bnews.exe from
the same directory as ocli.dll.
Typical usage consists of following steps:
1. Edit bnews.ini (first time usage only) for your system.
See bnews.ini.
2. Download an overview of a group: bnews /Cover /G<group> /H<host>
Overview is saved as <group>.over.txt.
3. Create a list of articles that you want to retrieve. You must do
this with your favorite text editor. Load the <group>.over.txt
file in your editor, and cut and paste the articles that you
want to get, save as <group>.get.txt
4. Download the articles: bnews /Cart /G<group> /H<host>
Articles are saved in <group>.uue.
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4. Configuration File
Bnews.ini is the configuration file. This file is not required, but it
will save some typing at the command line.
The default configuration file is bnews.ini, in the same directory as
bnews.exe. To specify a different configuration file, use the /Imy.ini
switch.
The configuration file can contain any valid Command Line Options,
except; /I<my.ini>
See: bnews.ini
Parameters on the command line override settings in the configuration
file.
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5. Command Line Options
/C<command> ART, OVER, NEW
/CART ARTICLE - Download articles listed in <group>.get.txt.
/COVER OVERVIEW - Download an overview of a group.
/CNEW NEWNEWS - Downloads only new articles since the
last /cnew session was run. The file
bnews.newstime (in the same directory as
bnews.exe) contains the time of last access for
each group.
/G<group> The full name of the news group to retrieve articles or an
overview from.
/Galt.binaries.pictures
/Gmy.favorite.binaries.group
/H<hostname> Your NNTP news server.
/Hnews.your.net
/Hnews
/I<my.ini> Use my.ini as the configuration file. Default is bnews.ini
in the same directory as bnews.exe.
/Imy.ini
/Ix:\path\my.ini
/L<logfile> Create a log file for error messages. Default is
bnews.log in the same path as bnews.exe.
/L
To specify the logfile name.
/Lmylog.txt
/Lx:\path\mylog.txt
/O Read from stdin and write to stdout.
bnews /cover | bnewsfilter | bnews /cart > art.uue
bnews /cover | bnewsfilter | bnews /cart | uudeview -io -
type <group>.get.txt | bnews /cart | uudeview -io i
/P<port> Port number. Default is 119, this switch will probably
never need to be used.
/P119
/S Sort the overview of a group by Subject. Default is not
to sort the group overview. This switch only applies in
overview mode, /cOVER.
/V Verify articles exist on server before downloading begins.
Useful when downloading multi-part messages.
This switch only applies in articles mode, /cART.
/D Show debug information.
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6. Operation
The program has two modes of operation. It will download an 1) OVERview
or 2) selected ARTicles from a group.
The mode is selected with the /C<command> option. /cOVER or /cART (case
not important). OVER and ART are the only two valid commands.
For example, to download an overview of alt.binaries.pictures, the
command line would be:
bnews /Cover /Galt.binaries.pictures /Hnews.your.net
The overview will be saved in a file named a.b.pictures.over.txt.
The overview is saved to a text file named <group>.over.txt. The text
file is named by the group with ".over.txt" appended at the end of the
group's name. See "File Naming Mechanism", below.
*NOTE*: You must provide the group's FULL NAME on the command line or
in the configuration file.
Next, create a.b.pictures.get.txt, with your text editor, which contains
the articles listed in a.b.pictures.over.txt that you want to download.
Now run bnews with the /Cart switch to download the articles:
bnews /Cart /Galt.binaries.pictures /Hnews.your.net
Articles will be saved in a file called a.b.pictures.uue.
You must have the appropriate tools (uudecode, mime, ...) to extract the
encoded <group>.uue file.
When the /V command line option is used (only valid with /cART), bnews
verifies that the all articles exist on the server before downloading
begins. There are rare occasions when an article(s) listed in the
overview does not exist on the server, so it seems pointless to download
6/7 to find that 7/7 doesn't exist. At least, all articles are known to
exist when the download begins, its still possible that article(s) may
be deleted on the server after the download begins, but this is even
rarer in my experience.
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7. File Naming Mechanism
<group>.over.txt - Overview of articles, created by bnews.
Always overwritten, truncated.
<group>.get.txt - List of articles to get, created by you.
Only read.
<group>.uue - Downloaded articles, created by bnews.
Never overwritten, appended.
To keep filenames shorter, the following hierarchies are abbreviated:
alt.bbs.doors.binaries. = a.b.d.b.
alt.binaries.erotica. = a.b.e.
alt.binaries.games. = a.b.g.
alt.binaries.multimedia. = a.b.m.
alt.binaries.nude. = a.b.n.
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica. = a.b.p.e.
alt.binaries.pictures. = a.b.p.
alt.binaries.sounds. = a.b.s.
alt.binaries.warez. = a.b.w.
alt.binaries. = a.b.
alt.games. = a.g.
comp.binaries. = c.b.
de.alt.binaries. = d.a.b.
fj.binaries. = f.b.
relcom.comp. = r.c.
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8. Problems
When pasting to <group>.get.txt, care must be used to preserve the tab
(0x09) characters, otherwise the byte count will not be accurate. This
does not affect the program's operation. The byte count is only an
estimate the total number of bytes expected, minus the headers.
If the download is interrupted, for any reason, the <group>.get.txt and
<group>.uue files must be reset to the last complete message manually by
you with your text editor. Follow these two steps:
1. Load <group>.uue in your text editor, look at the end of the file
to see if the last message is complete or incomplete. Most
complete uuencoded articles end with "end" as the last line.
Delete any incomplete message at the end of the <group>.uue file.
2. Reset the <group>.get.txt file by deleting the articles at the
beginning of the file which were completely downloaded, so that
when Bnews is run again it will begin downloading the article that
was incomplete. You may have to look in <group>.uue to see which,
if any, article was incomplete.
***IMPORTANT***
If you don't follow these two steps, the encoded data in
<group>.uue will not decode properly!
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9. Future versions
Fix the above problems.
Add a method to get a list of all news groups from the server.
Add feature to keep track of which articles have been downloaded.
Improve logging.
Suggestions welcome.
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10. Registration
Registration for this program is $5. Send registrations to:
Phil Crown
326 Kinney Drive
Wylie, TX 75098-7725
Email: pcrown@airmail.net
WWW : http://web2.airmail.net/pcrown/index.html#bnews
Note : Even if you don't plan to register, send me email saying,
"Hey, I (like/don't like) Binary News Gatherer!"
I'd just like to know if anybody is using the program.
Thanks!
Phil
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11. History
0.90 Jul 31 96 - First release.
0.91 Aug 17 96 - Touches <group>.get.txt, if it doesn't exist,
when downloading an overview. Helps with
cutting/pasting with QEdit, maybe others.
Fewer lines from the headers are saved.
Shows cps.
Shows elapsed runtime.
Added cleanover.cmd - REXX script to discard trash
from <group>.over.txt.
Added /D /I /L /S and /V command line options.
More options in .ini file.
0.92 Aug 20 96 - Output to log file is flushed.
File Naming Mechanism improved.
Article number appended to "423 Bad Article" message.
Fixed spelling of Article in Good Article.
0.93 Oct 31 96 - /O switch added - read from stdin and write to stdout.
/Cnew - newnews command added.
fixed bug in /cnew command that corrupted the date/time
in bnews.newstime.
fixed bug in socket function when '.' is the first
character of a line of an article.
Compiled with IBM CSet++ v2.01
c2151mt.dll no longer needed