term% cat index.txt READNEWS(1) General Commands Manual READNEWS(1)
NAME
checknews, readnews - read news articles
SYNOPSIS
checknews [ ynqve ] [ readnews-options ]
readnews [ -a date ] [ -n newsgroup ] [ -t titles ] [ -lprxhfuM ] [ -c
[ mailer ] ]
readnews -s
DESCRIPTION
Checknews reports whether there is news present.
y report only if news is present
n report only if news is absent
q turn off reports; nonzero exit status indicates news.
v alters the y message to show the name of the first newsgroup
containing unread news. Doubling v (e.g. vv) causes an expla‐
nation of any claim of new news, and is useful if checknews and
readnews disagree.
e executes readnews(1) if there is news
If there are no options, y is the default.
Readnews without arguments prints unread articles. There are several
interfaces available besides the default:
Flag Interface
-M An interface to Mail(1).
-c A /bin/mail(1)-like interface.
-c `mailer'
All selected articles written to a temporary file. Then the
mailer is invoked. The name of the temporary file is refer‐
enced with a `%'. Thus, `mail -f %' will invoke mail on a
temporary file consisting of all selected messages.
-p All selected articles are sent to the standard output. No
questions asked.
-l Only the titles output. The .newsrc file will not be up‐
dated.
The -r flag causes the articles to be printed in reverse order. The -f
flag prevents any followup articles from being printed. The -h flag
causes articles to be printed in a less verbose format, and is intended
for terminals running at 300 baud. the -u flag causes the .newsrc file
to be updated every 5 minutes, in case of an unreliable system. (Note
that if the newsrc file is updated, the x command will not restore it
to its original contents.)
The following flags determine the selection of articles.
-n newsgroups
Select all articles that belong to newsgroups.
-t titles Select all articles whose titles contain one of the strings
specified by titles.
-a [ date ]
Select all articles that were posted past the given date.
-x Ignore .newsrc file. That is, select articles that have al‐
ready been read as well as new ones.
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 in which the -x or -l options weren't specified.
If the environment variable NEWSRC is present, it should be the path
name of a file to be used in place of .newsrc.
If the user wishes, an options line may be placed in the .newsrc file.
This line starts with the word options (left justified) followed by the
list of standard options just as they would be typed on the command
line. Such a list may include: the -n flag along with a newsgroup
list; a favorite interface; and/or the -r or -t flag. Continuation
lines are specified by following lines beginning with a space or tab
character. Similarly, options can be specified in the NEWSOPTS envi‐
ronment parameter. Where conflicts exist, option on the command line
take precedence, followed by the .newsrc options line, and lastly the
NEWSOPTS parameter.
readnews -s will print the newsgroup subscription list.
When user uses the reply command of the default or mail interfaces,
the environment parameter MAILER will be used to determine which mailer
to use. The default is usually /bin/mail.
If the user so desires, he may specify a specific paging progam for ar‐
ticles. The environment parameter PAGER should be set to the paging
program. The name of the article is referenced with a `%', as in the
-c option. If no `%' is present, the article will be piped to the pro‐
gram. Paging may be disabled by setting PAGER to a null value.
COMMANDS
This section lists the commands you can type to the msgs and /bin/mail
interface prompts. The msgs interface will suggest some common com‐
mands in brackets. Just hitting return is the same as typing the first
command. For example, `[ynq]' means that the commands ``y'' (yes),
``n'' (no), and `q' (quit) are common responses, and that ``y'' is the
default. Command Meaning
y Yes. Prints current article and goes on to next.
n No. Goes on to next article without printing current one. In
the /bin/mail interface, this means `go on to the next article',
which will have the same effect as `y' or just hitting return.
q Quit. The .newsrc file will be updated if -l or -x were not on
the command line.
c Cancel the article. Only the author or the super user can do
this.
r Reply. Reply to article's author via mail. You are placed in
your EDITOR with a header specifying To, Subject, and References
lines taken from the message. You may change or add headers, as
appropriate. You add the text of the reply after the blank
line, and then exit the editor. The resulting message is mailed
to the author of the article.
rd Reply directly. You are placed in $MAILER (`mail' by default)
in reply to the author. Type the text of the reply and then
control-D.
f [title]
Submit a follow up article. Normally you should leave off the
title, since the system will generate one for you. You will be
placed in your EDITOR to compose the text of the followup.
fd Followup directly, without edited headers. This is like f, but
the headers of the article are not included in the editor buf‐
fer.
N [newsgroup]
Go to the next newsgroup or named newsgroup.
s [file]
Save. The article is appended to the named file. The default
is `Articles'. If the first character of the file name is `|',
the rest of the file name is taken as the name of a program,
which is executed with the text of the article as standard in‐
put. If the first character of the file name is `/', it is
taken as a full path name of a file. If $NEWSBOX (in the envi‐
ronment) is set to a full path name, and the file contains no
`/', the file is saved in $NEWSBOX. Otherwise, it is saved rel‐
ative to $HOME.
# Report the name and size of the newsgroup.
e Erase. Forget that this article was read.
h Print a more verbose header.
H Print a very verbose header, containing all known information
about the article.
U Unsubscribe from this newsgroup. Also goes on to the next news‐
group.
d Read a digest. Breaks up a digest into separate articles and
permits you to read and reply to each piece.
D [number]
Decrypt. Invokes a Caesar decoding program on the body of the
message. This is used to decrypt rotated jokes posted to
net.jokes, to avoid possible offense to uninterested readers.
The title of the joke should indicate the nature of the problem,
enabling people to decide whether to decrypt it or not.
Normally the Caesar program does a character frequency count on each
line of the article separately, so that lines which are not rotated
will be shown in plain text. This works well unless the line is short,
in which case it sometimes gets the wrong rotation. An explicit number
rotation (usually 13) may be given to force a particular shift.
v Print the current version of the news software.
! Shell escape.
number Go to number.
+[n] Skip n articles. The articles skipped are recorded as `unread'
and will be offered to you again the next time you read news.
- Go back to last article. This is a toggle, typing it twice re‐
turns you to the original article.
x Exit. Like quit except that .newsrc is not updated.
X [system]
Transmit article to the named system.
The commands c, f, fd, r, rd, e, h, H, and s can be followed by -'s to
refer to the previous article. Thus, when replying to an article using
the msgs interface, you should normally type `r-' (or ``re-'') since by
the time you enter a command, you are being offerred the next article.
EXAMPLES
readnews Read all unread articles using the msgs interface. The
.newsrc file is updated at the end of the session.
readnews -c ``ed %'' -l
Invoke the ed(1) text editor on a file containing the titles
of all unread articles. The .newsrc file is not updated at
the end of the session.
readnews -n all !fa.all -M -r
Read all unread articles except articles whose newsgroups be‐
gin with "fa." via Mail(1) in reverse order. The .newsrc
file is updated at the end of the session.
readnews -p -n all -a last thursday
Print every unread article since last Thursday. The .newsrc
file is updated at the end of the session.
readnews -p > /dev/null &
Discard all unread news. This is useful after returning from
a long trip.
FILES
/usr/spool/news/newsgroup/number
News articles
/usr/lib/news/active Active newsgroups and numbers of articles
/usr/lib/news/help Help file for msgs interface
~/.newsrc Options and list of previously read articles
SEE ALSO
postnews(1) mail(1),
BUGS
Netnews and readnews use the same text in different churches.
READNEWS(1)