Provided by: inn2_2.7.2-1_amd64 
NAME
archive - Usenet article archiver
SYNOPSIS
archive [-cfr] [-a archive] [-i index] [-p pattern] [input]
DESCRIPTION
archive makes copies of files specified on its standard input. It is normally run either as a channel
feed under innd or by a script before news.daily is run.
archive reads the named input file, or standard input if no file is given. The input is taken as a
sequence of lines; blank lines and lines starting with a number sign ("#") are ignored. All other lines
should specify the token of an article to archive. Every article is retrieved from a token, and the Xref
header field is used to determine the target file in the archive directory. You can limit the targets
taken from the Xref header field with the -p option.
Files are copied to a directory within the archive directory, patharchive in inn.conf (or some other
directory given with -a). The default is to create a hierarchy that mimics a traditional news spool
storage of the given articles; intermediate directories will be created as needed. For example, if the
input token represents article 2211 in the newsgroup comp.sources.unix, archive will by default store the
article as:
comp/sources/unix/2211
in the archive area. This can be modified with the -c and -f options.
OPTIONS
-a archive
If the -a flag is given, its argument specifies the root of the archive area, instead of patharchive
in inn.conf.
-c If the -c flag is given, directory names will be flattened as described under the -f option. Then,
additionally, all posts will be concatenated into a single file, appending to that file if it already
exists. The file name will be "YYYYMM", formed from the current time when archive is run. In other
words, if given an article in comp.sources.unix on December 14th, 1998, the article would be appended
to the file:
comp.sources.unix/199812
in the archive area.
Articles will be separated by a line containing only "-----------".
-f If the -f flag is used, directory names will be flattened, replacing the slashes with the periods.
In other words, article 2211 in comp.sources.unix will be written to:
comp.sources.unix/2211
in the archive area.
-i index
If the -i flag is used, archive will append one line to the file index for each article that it
archives. This line will contain the destination file name, the Message-ID header field, and the
Subject header field of the message, separated by spaces. If either header is missing (normally not
possible if the article was accepted by innd), it will be replaced by "<none>". The headers will be
transformed using the same rules as are used to generate overview data (unfolded and then with tabs,
CR, and LF replaced by spaces).
-p pattern
Limits the targets taken from the Xref header field to the groups specified in pattern. pattern is a
uwildmat pattern matching newsgroups that you wish to have archive handle.
-r By default, archive sets its standard error to pathlog/errlog. To suppress this redirection, use the
-r flag.
RETURN VALUE
If the input is exhausted, archive will exit with a zero status. If an I/O error occurs, it will try to
spool its input, copying it to a file. If there was no input filename, the standard input will be copied
to pathoutgoing/archive and the program will exit. If an input filename was given, a temporary file
named input.bch (if input is an absolute pathname) or pathoutgoing/input.bch (if the filename does not
begin with a slash) is created. Once the input is copied, archive will try to rename this temporary file
to be the name of the input file, and then exit.
EXAMPLES
A typical newsfeeds(5) entry to archive most source newsgroups is as follows:
source-archive!\
:!*,*sources*,!*wanted*,!*.d\
:Tc,Wn\
:<pathbin>/archive -f -i <patharchive>/INDEX
Replace <pathbin> and <patharchive> with the appropriate paths.
HISTORY
Written by Rich $alz <rsalz@uunet.uu.net> for InterNetNews. Converted to POD by Russ Allbery
<eagle@eyrie.org>.
SEE ALSO
inn.conf(5), libinn_uwildmat(3), newsfeeds(5).
INN 2.7.2 2024-06-23 ARCHIVE(8)