NAME¶
filechan - file-writing backend for InterNetNews
SYNOPSIS¶
filechan [
-d directory ] [
-f num_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 sequence 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.
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.
OPTIONS¶
- -f num_fields
- The ``-f'' flag may be used to specify a different
number of initial fields.
- -d directory
- By default, filechan writes its output into the
directory <pathoutgoing in inn.conf>. The ``
-d'' flag may be used to specify a directory the program should
change to before starting.
- -p pidfile
- If the ``-p'' flag is used, the program will write a
line containing its process ID (in text) to the specified file.
- -m mapfile
- 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 used in the example below to the full domain names:
# This is a comment
uunet:news.uu.net
foo:foo.com
munnari:munnari.oz.au
EXAMPLES¶
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>
HISTORY¶
Written by Robert Elz <kre@munnari.oz.au>, flags added by Rich $alz
<rsalz@uunet.uu.net>. This is revision 5909, dated 2002-12-03.
SEE ALSO¶
buffchan(8),
inn.conf(5),
innd(8),
newsfeeds(5).