FILECHAN(8)						      System Manager's Manual						       FILECHAN(8)

NAME

       filechan - file-writing backend for InterNetNews

SYNOPSIS

       filechan [ -d directory ] [ -f fields ] [ -m mapfile ] [ -p pidfile ]

DESCRIPTION

       Filechan reads lines from standard input and copies certain fields in each line into files named by other fields within the line.  Filechan
       is intended to be called by innd(8) as a channel feed.  (It is not a full exploder and does not accept commands;  see  newsfeeds(5)  for  a
       description of the difference and buffchan(8) for an exploder program.)

       Filechan  input	is  interpreted  as a set of lines.  Each line contains a fixed number of initial fields, followed by a variable number of
       filename fields.  All fields in a line are separated by whitespace.  The default number of initial fields is one.

       For each line of input, filechan writes the initial fields, separated by whitespace and followed by a newline, to each of the  files  named
       in the filename fields.	When writing to a file, filechan opens it in append mode and tries to lock it and change the ownership to the user
       and group who owns the directory where the file is being written.

OPTIONS

       -f     The ``-f'' flag may be used to specify a different number of fields.

       -d     By default, filechan writes its arguments into the directory /var/spool/news/out.going.  The ``-d'' flag may be used  to	specify  a
	      directory the program should change to before starting.

       -p     If the ``-p'' flag is used, the program will write a line containing its process ID (in text) to the specified file.

       If filechan is invoked with ``-f 2'' and given the following input:
	      news/software/b/132 <1643@munnari.oz.au> foo uunet
	      news/software/b/133 <102060@litchi.foo.com> uunet munnari
	      comp/sources/unix/2002 <999@news.foo.com> foo uunet munnari

       Then the file foo will have these lines:
	      news/software/b/132 <1643@munnari.oz.au>
	      comp/sources/unix/2002 <999@news.foo.com>

       the file munnari will have these lines:
	      news/software/b/133 <102060@litchi.foo.com>
	      comp/sources/unix/2002 <999@news.foo.com>

       and the file uunet will have these lines:
	      news/software/b/132 <1643@munnari.oz.au>
	      news/software/b/133 <102060@litchi.foo.com>
	      comp/sources/unix/2002 <999@news.foo.com>

       Because	the time window in which a file is open is very small, complicated flushing and locking protocols are not needed; a mv(1) followed
       by a sleep(1) for a couple of seconds is sufficient.

       -m     A map file may be specified by using the ``-m'' flag.  Blank lines and lines starting with a number sign (``#'') are  ignored.   All
	      other  lines  should have two host names separated by a colon.  The first field is the name that may appear in the input stream; the
	      second field names the file to be used when the name in the first field appears.	For example, the following map file may be used to
	      map the short names above to the full domain names:
	      # This is a comment
	      uunet:news.uu.net
	      foo:foo.com
	      munnari:munnari.oz.au

HISTORY

       Written by Robert Elz <kre@munnari.oz.au>, flags added by Rich $alz <rsalz@uunet.uu.net>.  This is revision 1.19, dated 1996/10/29.

SEE ALSO

       buffchan(8), innd(8), newsfeeds(5).

																       FILECHAN(8)