grephistory(1) [redhat man page]
GREPHISTORY(1) General Commands Manual GREPHISTORY(1) NAME
grephistory - display file names from Usenet history file SYNOPSIS
grephistory [ -e ] [ -f filename ] [ -h ] [ -i ] [ -l ] [ -n ] [ -q ] [ -s ] [ -t ] [ messageid ] DESCRIPTION
Grephistory queries the dbz(3) index into the history(5) file for an article having a specified Message-ID or hash key of Message-ID. If messageid cannot be found in the database, the program prints ``Not found'' and exits with a non-zero status. If messageid is in the database, the program prints the token of the article and exits successfully. OPTIONS
-e If the ``-e'' flag is used, then grephistory will only print the filename of the token of an existing article. -f To specify a different value for the history file and database, use the ``-f'' flag. -h If the ``-h'' flag is used then the hash of the Message-ID will be printed regardless of its existense. -i If the ``-i'' flag is used, then grephistory will read a list of Message-ID's on standard input, one per line. Leading and trailing whitespace is ignored, as are any malformed lines. It will print on standard output those Message-ID's which are not found in the history database. This flag is used in processing ``ihave'' control messages. -l If the ``-l'' flag is used then the entire line from the history file will be displayed. -n If no pathname exists, the program will print ``/dev/null'' and exit successfully. This can happen when an article has been can- celed, or if it has been expired but its history is still retained. This is default behavior, which can be obtained by using the ``-n'' flag. -q If the ``-q'' flag is used, then no message is displayed. The program will still exit with the appropriate exit status. -s If the ``-s'' flag is used, then grephistory will read a similar list from its standard input. It will print on standard output a list of filenames for each article that is still available. This flag is used in processing ``sendme'' control messages. -t If the ``-t'' flag is used, then only the offset into the history text file is printed. HISTORY
Written by Rich $alz <rsalz@uunet.uu.net> for InterNetNews. This is revision 1.6.2.1, dated 2000/08/17. SEE ALSO
dbz(3), history(5), inn.conf(5). GREPHISTORY(1)
Check Out this Related Man Page
HISTORY(5) File Formats Manual HISTORY(5) NAME
history - record of current and recently expired Usenet articles DESCRIPTION
The file <pathdb in inn.conf>/history keeps a record of all articles currently stored in the news system, as well as those that have been received but since expired. In a typical production environment, this file will be many megabytes. The file consists of text lines. Each line corresponds to one article. The file is normally kept sorted in the order in which articles are received, although this is not a requirement. Innd(8) appends a new line each time it files an article, and expire(8) builds a new version of the file by removing old articles and purging old entries. Each line consists of two or three fields separated by a tab, shown below as : [Hash] date [Hash] date token The Hash field is the ASCII representation of the hash of the Message-ID header. This is directly used for the key of the dbz(3). The date field consists of three sub-fields separated by a tilde. All sub-fields are the text representation of the number of seconds since the epoch -- i.e., a time_t; see gettimeofday(2). The first sub-field is the article's arrival date. If copies of the article are still present then the second sub-field is either the value of the article's Expires header, or a hyphen if no expiration date was speci- fied. If an article has been expired then the second sub-field will be a hyphen. The third sub-field is the value of the article's Date header, recording when the article was posted. The token field is a token of the article. This field is empty if the article has been expired. For example, an article whose Message-ID was <7q2saq$sal$1@isrv4.pa.vix.com>, posted on 26 Aug 1999 08:02:34 GMT and recieved at 26 Aug 1999 08:06:54 GMT, could have a history line (broken into three lines for display) like the following: [E6184A5BC2898A35A3140B149DE91D5C] 935678987~-~935678821 @030154574F00000000000007CE3B000004BA@ In addition to the text file, there is a dbz(3) database associated with the file that uses the Message-ID field as a key to determine the offset in the text file where the associated line begins. For historical reasons, the key includes the trailing byte (which is not stored in the text file). HISTORY
Written by Rich $alz <rsalz@uunet.uu.net> for InterNetNews. This is revision 3782, dated 2000-08-17. SEE ALSO
dbz(3), expire(8), inn.conf(5), innd(8), makehistory(8). HISTORY(5)