PRUNEHISTORY(8)PRUNEHISTORY(8)NAME
prunehistory - remove file names from Usenet history file
SYNOPSIS
prunehistory [ -f filename ] [ -p ] [ input ]
DESCRIPTION
Prunehistory modifies the history(5) text file to ``remove'' a set of
filenames from it. The filenames are removed by overwriting them with
spaces, so that the fize and position of any following entries does not
change.
Prunehistory reads the named input file, or standard input if no file
is given. The input is taken as a set of lines. Blank lines and lines
starting with a number sign (``#'') are ignored. All other lines are
should consist of a Message-ID followed by zero or more filenames.
Prunehistory will normally complain about lines that do not follow this
format. If the ``-p'' flag is used, then the program will silently
print any invalid lines on its standard output. (Blank lines and com‐
ment lines are also passed through.) This can be useful when prunehis‐
tory is used as a filter for other programs such as reap.
The Messge-ID is used as the dbz(3) key to get an offset into the text
file. If no filenames are mentioned on the input line, then all file‐
names in the text are ``removed.'' If any filenames are mentioned,
they are converted into the history file notation. If they appear in
the line for the specified Message-ID then they are removed.
The default name of the history file is /var/spool/news/data/history;
to specify a different name, use the ``-f'' flag.
Since innd(8) only appends to the text file, prunehistory does not need
to have any interaction with it.
It is a good idea to delete purged entries and rebuild the dbz database
every so often by using a script like the following:
ctlinnd throttle "Rebuilding history database"
cd /var/spool/news/data
awk 'NF > 2 {
printf "%s\t%s\t%s", $1, $2, $3;
for (i = 4; i <= NF; i++)
printf " %s", $i;
print "\n";
}' <history >history.n
if makehistory -r -f history.n ; then
mv history.n history
mv history.n.pag history.pag
mv history.n.dir history.dir
else
echo 'Problem rebuilding history; old file not replaced'
fi
ctlinnd go "Rebuilding history database"
Note that this keeps no record of expired articles.
HISTORY
Written by Rich $alz <rsalz@uunet.uu.net> for InterNetNews. This is
revision 1.6, dated 1993/01/29.
SEE ALSOdbz(3), history(5), innd(8).
PRUNEHISTORY(8)