*BSD News Article 25436


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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!spool.mu.edu!agate!agate!usenet
From: wkt@cserve.cs.adfa.oz.au (Warren Toomey)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.announce
Subject: bsdnews on minnie: a man page
Followup-To: poster
Date: 30 Dec 1993 05:07:16 -0800
Organization: ADFA, Canberra, Australia
Lines: 109
Sender: cgd@agate.berkeley.edu
Approved: 386bsd-announce-request@agate.berkeley.edu
Message-ID: <9312290124.AA03834@cserve.cs.adfa.oz.au>
NNTP-Posting-Host: agate.berkeley.edu
Summary: Finally, a man page for the bsdnews program
Keywords: comp.os.386bsd, news, archive, telnet, minnie

Merry Xmas, Happy New Year etc. I've altered the bsdnews news interface
on minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au yet again; see the SORT variable below for
details. I've finally written a man page for the program, it's below.

Have a good one!

	Warren wkt@csadfa.cs.adfa.oz.au


bsdnews(1L)       MISC. REFERENCE MANUAL PAGES        bsdnews(1L)


NAME
     bsdnews - user interface to *BSD news archive

SYNOPSIS
     bsdnews

DESCRIPTION
     bsdnews is a user interface to a  *BSD  news  archive.   The
     interface allows you to search the subject lines of the news
     for keywords, and then to read some/all of the articles  you
     found.

     The user accesses the program  by telnetting  to the  machine
     minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au,  logging  in  as  bsdnews.  She/he then 
     interacts with it by giving it lines of commands. The follow-
     ing commands are available:

     help [command]
         - gives explicit help on the named command, or  a  short
         synopsis of the available commands.

     ? [command]
         - the same as help.

     grep [-i] egrep_pattern
         - search the *BSD news subject lines for the given egrep
         pattern.  The  result  is  displayed  on the screen with
         either less or cat, depending on the value of the  PAGER
         variable; see Environment Variables for more details.

     mail email_address
         - mail the result of the last grep or read to the  given
         email address.

     prog [-i] egrep_pattern
         - the same as grep.

     read article
         - read the contents of the requested article. The  arti-
         cle  is  a decimal number, given in the left-most column
         of the grep results. The  result  is  displayed  on  the
         screen  with  either less or cat, depending on the value
         of the PAGER variable.

     quit
         - exit the program.

     set [variable [value] ]
         - set the named variable to  the  given  value.  If  the
         value  is  not given, the value 1 is used. If both vari-
         able and value are omitted, the list  of  variables  and
         their values is printed.

     unset variable
         - remove the named variable from the list of  set  vari-
         ables.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
     The operation of bsdnews is affected  by  certain  variables
     and their values. These variables are:

     PATH
         - the path used to find the following  programs:  egrep,
         sed, cat, cp, sort, rm, gunzip, tar and the pager used.

     PAGER
         - if unset, the  result  of  a  grep  or  read  is  sent
         directly  to the screen. If set, a pager is used to show
         the result one page at a  time;  the  default  pager  is
         less.

     LESS
         - if less is the default pager, this  variable  controls
         its  operation.  See  the  manual page for less for more
         details.

     TERM
         - most pagers need to know the type  of  terminal  being
         used. This variable should be set to your terminal type.

     LAST
         - if set, and you have done a grep and then a read,  the
         grep  is redisplayed after you have finished reading the
         article. This allows you to  continue  browsing  through
         your search after reading each article.

     SORT
         - this variable takes one of two values, date  and  sub-
         ject.  If  unset or set to subject, the result of a grep
         is sorted according to the contents of the subject lines
         found.  If  set  to date, the result of a grep is sorted
         according to the article numbers found,  which  gives  a
         roughly chronological sorting.

SEE ALSO
     last(1L), egrep(1)