.TH READNEWS 7 alice,research .CT 1 comm_users .SH NAME checknews, readnews \- read netnews articles .SH SYNOPSIS .B readnews [ .B -a .I date ] [ .B -n .I newsgroup ... ] [ .B -t .I title ... ] [ .B -lprxhfuM ] [ .B -c [ .I command ] ] .PP .B readnews -s .PP .B checknews [ .B ynqve ] [ .I readnews-options ] .SH DESCRIPTION .I Readnews prints unread articles that have arrived via the informal, worldwide `netnews' network. Without arguments it prints unread articles from newsgroups to which you subscribe. The options are: .TF -adate .TP .B -M An interface to .IR Mail (A). A .IR mail (1)-like interface. .TP .BI -c " command Articles are written to a temporary `mailbox' and the .I command (e.g. .LR "mail -f %" ) is invoked, with the mailbox in place of .LR % . A missing .I command gets something like .IR mail (1). .TP .B -p Articles are sent to the standard output, no questions asked. .TP .B -l Titles only. The file .F .newsrc will not be updated. .TP .B -r Print articles in reverse order. .TP .B -f No followup articles. .TP .B -h Printed in a briefer format. .TP .B -u Update file .F .newsrc every 5 minutes. .TP .BI -n " newsgroup ... Select articles that belong to .I newsgroups. .TP .BI -t " titles Select articles whose titles contain one of the .I title strings. .TP .BI -a " date Select articles that were posted since .IR date ; a missing .I date means the beginning of time. .TP .B -x Ignore .FR .newsrc ; select previously read as well as unread articles. .TP .B -s Print subscription list. .PD .PP The file .FR $HOME/.newsrc , or a file specified by environment variable .BR NEWSRC , tells what topics you are interested in and what you have read. If .F .newsrc contains a line starting with options (left justified, continued by trailing .LR \e ), or if the environment variable .B NEWSOPTS is present, options are taken from there as well as the command line. In case of conflict, an option on the command line take precedence, followed by .F .newsrc and finally .BR NEWSOPTS . .PP .I Readnews invokes some other programs to perform services. To reply to a news item it uses .IR mail (1) or an alternate in environment parameter .BR MAILER . It paginates with .IR p (1), or an alternate in .BR PAGER . .BR PAGER is a command, perhaps containing .L % as in option .BR -c , or empty for no pagination. .PP The default and .IR mail interfaces support the following commands, and prompt with common alternatives: a newline accepts the first one. For example, .L [ynq] proposes yes, no, and quit; newline gets yes. .TP .B y Yes. Print current article and go on to next. .PD0 .TP .B n No. Skip the current article. (In .I mail interface, it means .BR y .) .TP .B q Quit; update .FR .newsrc . .TP .B c Cancel the article. Only the author or the super-user can do this. .TP .B r Reply. Reply to article's author via mail. You are placed in .IR mail , or an alternate in environment parameter .BR EDITOR , with a header constructed from the article. You may change or add headers. Add your reply after the blank line. Upon exit the message is mailed. .TP .B rd Reply directly. You are placed in .B MAILER .RI ( mail by default). Type the text of the reply and then control-D. .TP .BI f " title Submit a followup article. If you omit the title, .I readnews generates an appropriate one. You will be placed in your .B EDITOR to compose the followup. .TP .B fd Follow up directly. This is like .BR f , but does not construct headers. .TP .BI N " newsgroup Go to the named .IR newsgroup , or the next newsgroup if none is named .TP .BI s " file Save. Append the article to .I file. The default is .FR Articles . If .I file is not a full pathname, it is taken relative to .BR HOME , overridden by environment parameter .BR NEWSBOX . If the first character of .I file is .LR | , the rest is taken as the name of a program, into which the article is piped. .TP .B # Report the name and size of the newsgroup. .TP .B e Erase. Forget that this article was read. .TP .B h Print a more verbose header. .TP .B H Print a very verbose, complete header. .TP .B U Unsubscribe from this newsgroup and go on to the next. .TP .B d Read a digest. Presents a digest as separate articles. .TP .BI D " number Decrypt a Caesar cipher (usually used to obscure off-color material in .LR net.jokes ). The rotation is normally determined line-by-line from character frequencies. If this fails, an explicit .I number (usually 13) may be given. .TP .B v Print the current version of the news software. .TP .B ! Shell escape. .TP .I number Go to article .I number. .TP .if t .BI \(+- n .if n +-n Skip .I n articles, 1 by default. The articles skipped are recorded as `unread'. .TP .B - Go back to last article. This is a toggle, typing it twice returns you to the original article. .TP .B x Exit. Like .B q except that .F .newsrc is not updated. .TP .BI X " system Transmit article to the named system. .PD .PP A .L - following .BR c , .BR f , .BR fd , .BR r , .BR rd , .BR e , .BR h , .BR H , or .BR s refers to the previous article: .LR "r -" is the normal way to reply to a just-read article when the next one is being offered. .PP .I Checknews reports whether there is news present, with options: .TP .B y Report only if news is present (default). .PD0 .TP .B n Report only if news is absent. .TP .B q Turn off reports; nonzero exit status indicates news. .TP .B v Show the name of the first newsgroup containing unread news. .TP .B vv Explain any claim of new news, useful if checknews and readnews disagree. .TP .B e Execute .I readnews if there is news. .SH EXAMPLES .TP .L readnews Read all unread articles. .TP .L readnews -n net.langs.c -a last thursday Print every unread article about C since last Thursday. .TP .L readnews -p >/dev/null & Discard all unread news: useful after returning from a long trip. .TP .L readnews -c "ed %" -l Invoke .IR ed (1) on a file containing the titles of all unread articles. .SH FILES .TF /usr/spool/news/newsgroup/number .TP .BI /usr/spool/news/ newsgroup / number News articles .TP .F /usr/lib/news/active Active newsgroups and numbers of articles .TP .F /usr/lib/news/help Help file for default interface .TP .F $HOME/.newsrc .SH SEE ALSO .IR postnews (7), .IR Mail (A) .SH BUGS .I Readnews is baroque; many users prefer to browse among the files in .FR /usr/spool/news .