RN(1) USER COMMANDS RN(1)
NAME
rn | new read news program
SYNOPSIS
rn [options] [newsgroups]
DESCRIPTION
Rn is a replacement for the readnews(1) program that was
written to be as efficient as possible, particularly in
human interaction. Rn attempts to minimize the amount of
"dead" time spent reading news|it tries to get things done
while the user is reading or deciding whether to read, and
attempts to get useful information onto the screen as soon
as possible, highlighting spots that the eye makes frequent
reference to, like subjects and previously read lines.
Whether or not it's faster, it SEEMS faster.
If no newsgroups are specified, all the newsgroups which
have unread news are displayed, and then the user is asked
for each one whether he wants to read it, in the order in
which the newsgroups occur in the .newsrc file. With a list
of newsgroups, rn will start up in "add" mode, using the
list as a set of patterns to add new newsgroups and restrict
which newsgroups are displayed. See the discussion of the
'a' command on the newsgroup selection level.
Rn operates on three levels: the newsgroup selection level,
the article selection level, and the paging level. Each
level has its own set of commands, and its own help menu.
At the paging level (the bottom level), rn behaves much like
the more(1) program. At the article selection level, you
may specify which article you want next, or read them in the
default order, which is either in order of arrival on your
system, or by subject threads. At the newsgroup selection
level (the top level), you may specify which newsgroup you
want next, or read them in the default order, which is the
order that the newsgroups occur in your .newsrc file. (You
will therefore want to rearrange your .newsrc file to put
the most interesting newsgroups first. This can be done
with the 'm' command on the Newsgroup Selection level.
WARNING: invoking readnews/vnews (the old user interface) in
any way (including as a news checker in your login
sequence!) will cause your .newsrc to be disarranged again.)
On any level, at ANY prompt, an 'h' may be typed for a list
of available commands. This is probably the most important
command to remember, so don't you forget it. Typing space
to any question means to do the normal thing. You will know
10/89 Page 1
what that is because every prompt has a list of several
plausible commands enclosed in square brackets. The first
command in the list is the one which will be done if you
type a space. (All input is done in cbreak mode, so
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RN(1) USER COMMANDS RN(1)
carriage returns should not be typed to terminate anything
except certain multi|character commands. Those commands
will be obvious in the discussion below because they take an
argument.)
Upon startup, rn will do several things:
1. It will look for your .newsrc file, which is your list
of subscribed|to newsgroups. If rn doesn't find a
.newsrc, it will create one. If it does find one, it
will back it up under the name ".oldnewsrc".
2. It will input your .newsrc file, listing out the first
several newsgroups with unread news.
3. It will perform certain consistency checks on your
.newsrc. If your .newsrc is out of date in any of
several ways, rn will warn you and patch it up for you,
but you may have to wait a little longer for it to start
up.
4. Rn will next check to see if any new newsgroups have
been created, and give you the opportunity to add them
to your .newsrc.
5. Rn goes into the top prompt level|the newsgroup selec-
tion level.
Newsgroup Selection Level
In this section the words "next" and "previous" refer to the
ordering of the newsgroups in your .newsrc file. On the
newsgroup selection level, the prompt looks like this:
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******** 17 unread articles in talk.blurfl|read now? [ynq]
and the following commands may be given at this level:
y,SP Do this newsgroup now.
.command
Do this newsgroup now, but execute command before
displaying anything. The command will be inter-
preted as if given on the article selection level.
= Do this newsgroup now, but list subjects before
displaying articles.
n Go to the next newsgroup with unread news.
N Go to the next newsgroup.
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RN(1) USER COMMANDS RN(1)
p Go to the previous newsgroup with unread news. If
there is none, stay at the current newsgroup.
P Go to the previous newsgroup.
- Go to the previously displayed newsgroup (regardless
of whether it is before or after the current one in
the list).
1 Go to the first newsgroup.
^ Go to the first newsgroup with unread news.
$ Go to the end of the newsgroups list.
g newsgroup
Go to newsgroup. If it isn't currently subscribed
to, you will be asked if you want to subscribe.
/pattern
10/89 Page 3
Scan forward for a newsgroup matching pattern. Pat-
terns do globbing like filenames, i.e., use ? to
match a single character, * to match any sequence of
characters, and [] to specify a list of characters
to match. ("all" may be used as a synonym for "*".)
Unlike normal filename globbing, newsgroup searching
is not anchored to the front and back of the
filename, i.e. "/ski" will find rec.skiing. You may
use ^ or $ to anchor the front or back of the
search: "/^test$" will find newsgroup test and
nothing else If you want to include newsgroups with
0 unread articles, append /r. If the newsgroup is
not found between the current newsgroup and the last
newsgroup, the search will wrap around to the begin-
ning.
?pattern
Same as /, but search backwards.
u Unsubscribe from current newsgroup.
l string
List newsgroups not subscribed to which contain the
string specified.
L Lists the current state of the .newsrc, along with
status information.
Status Meaning
<number> Count of unread articles in newsgroup.
READ No unread articles in newsgroup.
UNSUB Unsubscribed newsgroup.
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RN(1) USER COMMANDS RN(1)
BOGUS Bogus newsgroup.
JUNK Ignored line in .newsrc
(e.g. readnews "options" line).
(A bogus newsgroup is one that is not in the list of
active newsgroups in the active file, which on most
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systems is /usr/lib/news/active unless you use
NNTP.)
m name Move the named newsgroup somewhere else in the
.newsrc. If no name is given, the current newsgroup
is moved. There are a number of ways to specify
where you want the newsgroup|type h for help when it
asks where you want to put it.
c Catch up|mark all unread articles in this newsgroup
as read.
o pattern
Only display those newsgroups whose name matches
pattern. Patterns are the same as for the '/' com-
mand. Multiple patterns may be separated by spaces,
just as on the command line. The restriction will
remain in effect either until there are no articles
left in the restricted set of newsgroups, or another
restriction command is given. Since pattern is
optional, 'o' by itself will remove the restriction.
a pattern
Add new newsgroups matching pattern. Newsgroups
which are already in your .newsrc file, whether sub-
scribed to or not, will not be listed. If any new
newsgroups are found, you will be asked for each one
whether you would like to add it. If you want to add
all new newsgroups, you can type 'Y' and they will
be added the the end of the .newsrc file and as
groups you want to read. If you don't want to sub-
scribe, all the new groups can be added by typing
'N'. After any new newsgroups have been added, the
'a' command also restricts the current set of news-
groups just like the 'o' command does.
& Print out the current status of command line
switches and any newsgroup restrictions.
&switch {switch}
Set additional command line switches.
&& Print out the current macro definitions.
&&keys commands
Define additional macros.
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10/89 Page 5
RN(1) USER COMMANDS RN(1)
!command
Escape to a subshell. One exclamation mark (!)
leaves you in your own news directory. A double
exclamation mark (!!) leaves you in the spool direc-
tory for news, which on most systems is
/usr/spool/news that don't use NNTP. The environ-
ment variable SHELL will be used if defined. If
command is null, an interactive shell is started.
q Quit.
x Quit, restoring .newsrc to its state at startup of
rn. The .newsrc you would have had if you had
exited with 'q' will be called .newnewsrc, in case
you didn't really want to type 'x'.
^K Edit the global KILL file. This is a file which
contains /pattern/j commands (one per line) to be
applied to every newsgroup as it is started up, that
is, when it is selected on the newsgroup selection
level. The purpose of a KILL file is to mark arti-
cles as read on the basis of some set of patterns.
This saves considerable wear and tear on your 'n'
key. There is also a local KILL file for each news-
group. Because of the overhead involved in search-
ing for articles to kill, it is better if possible
to use a local KILL file. Local KILL files are
edited with a '^K' on the article selection level.
There are also automatic ways of adding search com-
mands to the local KILL file|see the 'K' command and
the K search modifier on the article selection
level.
If either of the environment variables VISUAL or
EDITOR is set, the specified editor will be invoked;
otherwise a default editor (normally vi(1)) is
invoked on the KILL file.
Article Selection Level
On the article selection level, rn selects (by default)
unread articles in numerical order (the order in which arti-
cles have arrived at your site). If you do a subject search
(^N), the default order is modified to be numerical order
within each subject thread. You may switch back and forth
between numerical order and subject thread order at will.
The -S switch can be used to make subject search mode the
default.
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On the article selection level you are not asked whether you
want to read an article before the article is displayed;
rather, rn simply displays the first page (or portion of a
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RN(1) USER COMMANDS RN(1)
page, at low baud rates) of the article and asks if you want
to continue. The normal article selection prompt comes at
the END of the article (though article selection commands
can be given from within the middle of the article (the
pager level) also). The prompt at the end of an article
looks like this:
End of article 248 (of 257)|what next? [npq]
The following are the options at this point:
n,SP Scan forward for next unread article. (Note: the
'n' (next) command when typed at the end of an arti-
cle does not mark the article as read, since an
article is automaticaly marked as read after the
last line of it is printed. It is therefore possi-
ble to type a sequence such as 'mn' and leave the
article marked as unread. The fact that an article
is marked as read by typing 'n', 'N', '^N', 's', or
'S' within the MIDDLE of the article is in fact a
special case.)
N Go to the next article.
^N Scan forward for the next article with the same sub-
ject, and make ^N default (subject search mode).
p Scan backward for previous unread article. If there
is none, stay at the current article.
P Go to the previous article.
- Go to the previously displayed article (regardless
of whether that article is before or after this
article in the normal sequence).
10/89 Page 7
^P Scan backward for the previous article with the same
subject, and make ^N default (subject search mode).
^R Restart the current article.
v Restart the current article verbosely, displaying
the entire header.
^L Refresh the screen.
^X Restart the current article, and decrypt as a rot13
message.
X Refresh the screen, and decrypt as a rot13 message.
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RN(1) USER COMMANDS RN(1)
b Back up one page.
q Quit this newsgroup and go back to the newsgroup
selection level.
^ Go to the first unread article.
$ Go to the last article (actually, one past the last
article).
number Go to the numbered article.
range{,range} command{:command}
Apply a set of commands to a set of articles. A
range consists of either <article number> or
<article number>-<article number>. A dot '.'
represents the current article, and a dollar sign
'$' represents the last article.
Applicable commands include 'm' (mark as unread),
'M' (delayed mark as unread), 'j' (mark as read), "s
dest" (save to a destination), "!command" (shell
Page 8 10/89
escape), "=" (print the subject) and "C" (cancel).
j Junk the current article|mark it as read. If this
command is used from within an article, you are left
at the end of the article, unlike 'n', which looks
for the next article.
m Mark the current article as still unread. (If you
are in subject search mode you probably want to use
M instead of m. Otherwise the current article may
be selected as the beginning of the next subject
thread.)
M Mark the current article as still unread, but not
until the newsgroup is exited. Until then, the
current article will be marked as read. This is
useful for returning to an article in another ses-
sion, or in another newsgroup.
/pattern
Scan forward for article containing pattern in the
subject. See the section on Regular Expressions.
Together with the escape substitution facility
described later, it becomes easy to search for vari-
ous attributes of the current article, such as sub-
ject, article ID, author name, etc. The previous
pattern can be recalled with "<esc>/". If pattern
is omitted, the previous pattern is assumed.
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RN(1) USER COMMANDS RN(1)
/pattern/h
Scan forward for article containing pattern in the
header.
/pattern/a
Scan forward for article containing pattern anywhere
in article.
10/89 Page 9
/pattern/r
Scan read articles also.
/pattern/c
Make search case sensitive. Ordinarily upper and
lower case are considered the same.
/pattern/modifiers:command{:command}
Apply the commands listed to articles matching the
search command (possibly with h, a, or r modifiers).
Applicable commands include 'm' (mark as unread),
'M' (delayed mark as unread), 'j' (mark as read), "s
dest" (save to a destination), "!command" (shell
escape), "=" (print the subject) and "C" (cancel).
If the first command is 'm' or 'M', modifier r is
assumed. A K may be included in the modifiers (not
the commands) to cause the entire command (sans K)
to be saved to the local KILL file, where it will be
applied to every article that shows up in the news-
group.
For example, to save all articles in a given news-
group to the line printer and mark them read, use
"/^/|lpr:j". If you type "/^/K|lpr:j", this will
happen every time you enter the newsgroup.
?pattern
Scan backward for article containing pattern in the
subject. May be modified as the forward search is:
?pattern?modifiers[:commands]. It is likely that
you will want an r modifier when scanning backward.
k Mark as read all articles with the same subject as
the current article. (Note: there is no single
character command to temporarily mark as read (M
command) articles matching the current subject.
That can be done with "/<esc>s/M", however.)
K Do the same as the k command, but also add a line to
the local KILL file for this newsgroup to kill this
subject every time the newsgroup is started up. For
a discussion of KILL files, see the '^K' command
below. See also the K modifier on searches above.
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Page 10 10/89
RN(1) USER COMMANDS RN(1)
^K Edit the local KILL file for this newsgroup. Each
line of the KILL file should be a command of the
form /pattern/j. (With the exception that rn will
insert a line at the beginning of the form "THRU
<number>", which tells rn the maximum article number
that the KILL file has been applied to. You may
delete the THRU line to force a rescan of current
articles.) You may also have reason to use the m,
h, or a modifiers. Be careful with the M modifier
in a kill file|there are more efficient ways to
never read an article. You might have reason to use
it if a particular series of articles is posted to
multiple newsgroups. In this case, M would force
you to view the article in a different newsgroup.
To see only newgroup articles in the control news-
group, for instance, you might put
/^/j
/newgroup/m
which kills all subjects not containing "newgroup".
You can add lines automatically via the K command
and K search modifiers, but editing is the only way
to remove lines. If either of the environment vari-
ables VISUAL or EDITOR is set, the specified editor
will be invoked; otherwise a default editor (nor-
mally vi) is invoked on the KILL file.
The KILL file may also contain switch setting lines
beginning with '&'. Additionally, any line begin-
ning with 'X' is executed on exit from the newsgroup
rather than on entrance. This can be used to set
switches back to a default value.
r Reply through net mail. The environment variables
MAILPOSTER and MAILHEADER may be used to modify the
mailing behavior of rn (see environment section).
If on a nonexistent article such as the "End of
newsgroup" pseudo|article (which you can get to with
a '$' command), invokes the mailer to nobody in par-
ticular.
R Reply, including the current article in the header
file generated. (See 'F' command below). The YOU-
SAID environment variable controls the format of the
attribution line.
10/89 Page 11
f Submit a followup article. If on a nonexistent
article such as the "End of newsgroup" pseudo|
article (which you can get to with a '$' command),
posts an original article (basenote).
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RN(1) USER COMMANDS RN(1)
F Submit a followup article, and include the old arti-
cle, with lines prefixed either by ">" or by the
argument to a -F switch. Rn will attempt to provide
an attribution line in front of the quoted article,
generated from the From: line of the article.
Unfortunately, the From: line doesn't always contain
the right name; you should double check it against
the signature and change it if necessary, or you may
have to apologize for quoting the wrong person. The
environment variables NEWSPOSTER, NEWSHEADER and
ATTRIBUTION may be used to modify the posting
behavior of rn (see environment section).
C Cancel the current article, but only if you are the
contributor or superuser.
c Catch up in this newsgroup; i.e., mark all articles
as read.
u Unsubscribe to this newsgroup.
s destination
Save to a filename or pipe using sh. If the first
character of the destination is a vertical bar, the
rest of the command is considered a shell command to
which the article is passed through standard input.
The command is subject to filename expansion. (See
also the environment variable PIPESAVER.) If the
destination does not begin with a vertical bar, the
rest of the command is assumed to be a filename of
some sort. An initial tilde '~' will be translated
to the name of the home directory, and an initial
environment variable substitution is also allowed.
If only a directory name is specified, the environ-
Page 12 10/89
ment variable SAVENAME is used to generate the
actual name. If only a filename is specified (i.e.
no directory), the environment variable SAVEDIR will
be used to generate the actual directory. If noth-
ing is specified, then obviously both variables will
be used. Since the current directory for rn while
doing a save command is your private news directory,
typing "s ./filename" will force the file to your
news directory. Save commands are also run through
% interpretation, so that you can enter "s
%O/filename" to save to the directory you were in
when you ran rn, and "s %t" to save to a filename
consisting of the Internet address of the sender.
After generating the full pathname of the file to
save to, rn determines if the file exists already,
and if so, appends to it. Rn will attempt to deter-
mine if an existing file is a mailbox or a normal
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RN(1) USER COMMANDS RN(1)
file, and save the article in the same format. If
the output file does not yet exist, rn will by
default ask you which format you want, or you can
make it skip the question with either the -M or -N
switch. If the article is to be saved in mailbox
format, the command to do so is generated from the
environment variable MBOXSAVER. Otherwise, NORM-
SAVER is used.
S destination
Save to a filename or pipe using a preferred shell,
such as csh. Which shell is used depends first on
what you have the environment variable SHELL set to,
and in the absence of that, on what your news
administrator set for the preferred shell when he or
she installed rn.
| command
Shorthand for "s | command".
10/89 Page 13
w destination
The same as "s destination", but saves without the
header.
W destination
The same as "S destination", but saves without the
header.
& Print out the current status of command line
switches.
&switch {switch}
Set additional command line switches.
&& Print out current macro definitions.
&&keys commands
Define an additional macro.
!command
Escape to a subshell. One exclamation mark (!)
leaves you in your own news directory. A double
exclamation mark (!!) leaves you in the spool direc-
tory of the current newsgroup. The environment
variable SHELL will be used if defined. If command
is null, an interactive shell is started.
You can use escape key substitutions described later
to get to many run|time values. The command is also
run through % interpretation, in case it is being
called from a range or search command.
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RN(1) USER COMMANDS RN(1)
= List subjects of unread articles.
# Print last article number.
Pager Level
Page 14 10/89
At the pager level (within an article), the prompt looks
like this:
|MORE|(17%)
and a number of commands may be given:
SP Display next page.
x Display next page and decrypt as a rot13 message.
d,^D Display half a page more.
CR Display one more line.
q Go to the end of the current article (don't mark it
either read or unread). Leaves you at the "What
next?" prompt.
j Junk the current article. Mark it read and go to
the end of the article.
^L Refresh the screen.
X Refresh the screen and decrypt as a rot13 message.
b,^B Back up one page.
gpattern
Goto (search forward for) pattern within current
article. Note that there is no space between the
command and the pattern. If the pattern is found,
the page containing the pattern will be displayed.
Where on the page the line matching the pattern goes
depends on the value of the -g switch. By default
the matched line goes at the top of the screen.
G Search for g pattern again.
^G This is a special version of the 'g' command that is
for skipping articles in a digest. It is equivalent
to setting "-g4" and then executing the command
"g^Subject:".
TAB This is another special version of the 'g' command
that is for skipping inclusions of older articles.
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10/89 Page 15
RN(1) USER COMMANDS RN(1)
It is equivalent to setting "-g4" and then executing
the command "g^[^c]", where c is the first character
of the last line on the screen. It searches for the
first line that doesn't begin with the same charac-
ter as the last line on the screen.
!command
Escape to a subshell.
The following commands skip the rest of the current article,
then behave just as if typed to the "What next?" prompt at
the end of the article. See the documentation at the arti-
cle selection level for these commands.
# $ & / = ? c C f F k K ^K m M r R ^R u v Y ^
number
range{,range} command{:command}
The following commands also skip to the end of the article,
but have the additional effect of marking the current arti-
cle as read:
n N ^N s S | w W
Miscellaneous facts about commands
An 'n' typed at either the "Last newsgroup" prompt or a
"Last article" prompt will cycle back to the top of the
newsgroup or article list, whereas a 'q' will quit the
level. (Note that 'n' does not mean "no", but rather
"next".) A space will of course do whatever is shown as the
default, which will vary depending on whether rn thinks you
have more articles or newsgroups to read.
The 'b' (backup page) command may be repeated until the
beginning of the article is reached. If rn is suspended
(via a ^Z), then when the job is resumed, a refresh (^L)
will automatically be done (Berkeley|type systems only). If
you type a command such as '!' or 's' which takes you from
the middle of the article to the end, you can always get
back into the middle by typing '^L'.
In multi|character commands such as '!', 's', '/', etc, you
can interpolate various run|time values by typing escape and
a character. To find out what you can interpolate, type
escape and 'h', or check out the single character % substi-
tutions for environment variables in the Interpretation and
Page 16 10/89
Interpolation section, which are the same. Additionally,
typing a double escape will cause any % substitutions in the
string already typed in to be expanded.
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RN(1) USER COMMANDS RN(1)
Options
Rn has a nice set of options to allow you to tailor the
interaction to your liking. (You might like to know that
the author swears by "-e -m -S -/".) These options may be
set on the command line, via the RNINIT environment vari-
able, via a file pointed to by the RNINIT variable, or from
within rn via the & command. Options may generally be unset
by typing "+switch". Options include:
-c checks for news without reading news. If a list of
newsgroups is given on the command line, only those
newsgroups will be checked; otherwise all subscribed|to
newsgroups are checked. Whenever the -c switch is
specified, a non|zero exit status from rn means that
there is unread news in one of the checked newsgroups.
The -c switch does not disable the printing of news-
groups with unread news; this is controlled by the -s
switch. (The -c switch is not meaningful when given
via the & command.)
-C<number>
tells rn how often to checkpoint the .newsrc, in arti-
cles read. Actually, this number says when to start
thinking about doing a checkpoint if the situation is
right. If a reasonable checkpointing situation doesn't
arise within 10 more articles, the .newsrc is check-
pointed willy|nilly.
-d<directory name>
sets the default save directory to something other than
~/News. The directory name will be globbed (via csh)
if necessary (and if possible). Articles saved by rn
may be placed in the save directory or in a subdirec-
10/89 Page 17
tory thereof depending on the command that you give and
the state of the environment variables SAVEDIR and
SAVENAME. Any KILL files (see the K command in the
Article Selection section) also reside in this direc-
tory and its subdirectories, by default. In addition,
shell escapes leave you in this directory.
-D<flags>
enables debugging output. See common.h for flag
values. Warning: normally rn attempts to restore your
.newsrc when an unexpected signal or internal error
occurs. This is disabled when any debugging flags are
set.
-e causes each page within an article to be started at the
top of the screen, not just the first page. (It is
similar to the -c switch of more(1).) You never have
to read scrolling text with this switch. This is
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RN(1) USER COMMANDS RN(1)
helpful especially at certain baud rates because you
can start reading the top of the next page without
waiting for the whole page to be printed. It works
nicely in conjuction with the -m switch, especially if
you use half|intensity for your highlight mode. See
also the -L switch.
-E<name>=<val>
sets the environment variable <name> to the value
specified. Within rn, "&-ESAVENAME=%t" is similar to
"setenv SAVENAME '%t'" in csh, or "SAVENAME='%t';
export SAVENAME" in sh. Any environment variables set
with -E will be inherited by subprocesses of rn.
-F<string>
sets the prefix string for the 'F' followup command to
use in prefixing each line of the quoted article. For
example, "-F<tab>" inserts a tab on the front of each
line (which will cause long lines to wrap around,
unfortunately), "-F>>>>" inserts ">>>>" on every line,
Page 18 10/89
and "-F" by itself causes nothing to be inserted, in
case you want to reformat the text, for instance. The
initial default prefix is ">".
-g<line>
tells rn which line of the screen you want searched|for
strings to show up on when you search with the 'g' com-
mand within an article. The lines are numbered start-
ing with 1. The initial default is "-g1", meaning the
first line of the screen. Setting the line to less
than 1 or more than the number of lines on the screen
will set it to the last line of the screen.
-h<string>
hides (disables the printing of) all header lines
beginning with string. For instance, -hexp will disable
the printing of the "Expires:" line. Case is insigni-
ficant. If <string> is null, all header lines except
Subject are hidden, and you may then use +h to select
those lines you want to see. You may wish to use the
baud|rate switch modifier below to hide more lines at
lower baud rates.
-H<string>
works just like -h except that instead of setting the
hiding flag for a header line, it sets the magic flag
for that header line. Certain header lines have magic
behavior that can be controlled this way. At present,
the following actions are caused by the flag for the
particular line: the Newsgroups line will only print
when there are multiple newsgroups, the Subject line
will be underlined, and the Expires line will always be
Dell V.4/386 Last change: LOCAL 15
RN(1) USER COMMANDS RN(1)
suppressed if there is nothing on it. In fact, all of
these actions are the default, and you must use +H to
undo them.
-i=<number>
specifies how long (in lines) to consider the initial
10/89 Page 19
page of an article|normally this is determined automat-
ically depending on baud rate. (Note that an entire
article header will always be printed regardless of the
specified initial page length. If you are working at
low baud rate and wish to reduce the size of the
headers, you may hide certain header lines with the h
switch.)
-l disables the clearing of the screen at the beginning of
each article, in case you have a bizarre terminal.
-L tells rn to leave information on the screen as long as
possible by not blanking the screen between pages, and
by using clear to end|of|line. (The more(1) program
does this.) This feature works only if you have the
requisite termcap capabilities. The switch has no
effect unless the -e switch is set.
-m=<mode>
enables the marking of the last line of the previous
page printed, to help the user see where to continue
reading. This is most helpful when less than a full
page is going to be displayed. It may also be used in
conjunction with the -e switch, in which case the page
is erased, and the first line (which is the last line
of the previous page) is highlighted. If -m=s is
specified, the standout mode will be used, but if -m=u
is specified, underlining will be used. If neither =s
or =u is specified, standout is the default. Use +m to
disable highlighting.
-M forces mailbox format in creating new save files.
Ordinarily you are asked which format you want.
-N forces normal (non|mailbox) format in creating new save
files. Ordinarily you are asked which format you want.
-q bypasses the automatic check for new newsgroups when
starting rn.
-r causes rn to restart in the last newsgroup read during
a previous session with rn. It is equivalent to start-
ing up normally and then getting to the newsgroup with
a g command.
-s with no argument suppresses the initial listing of
Dell V.4/386 Last change: LOCAL 16
Page 20 10/89
RN(1) USER COMMANDS RN(1)
newsgroups with unread news, whether -c is specified or
not. Thus -c and -s can be used together to test
"silently" the status of news from within your .login
file. If -s is followed by a number, the initial list-
ing is suppressed after that many lines have been
listed. Presuming that you have your .newsrc sorted
into order of interest, -s5 will tell you the 5 most
interesting newsgroups that have unread news. This is
also a nice feature to use in your .login file, since
it not only tells you whether there is unread news, but
also how important the unread news is, without having
to wade through the entire list of unread newsgroups.
If no -s switch is given -s5 is assumed, so just put-
ting "rn -c" into your .login file is fine.
-S<number>
causes rn to enter subject search mode (^N) automati-
cally whenever a newsgroup is started up with <number>
unread articles or more. Additionally, it causes any
'n' typed while in subject search mode to be inter-
preted as '^N' instead. (To get back out of subject
search mode, the best command is probably '^'.) If
<number> is omitted, 3 is assumed.
-t puts rn into terse mode. This is more cryptic but use-
ful for low baud rates. (Note that your system
administrator may have compiled rn with either verbose
or terse messages only to save memory.) You may wish
to use the baud|rate switch modifier below to enable
terse mode only at lower baud rates.
-T allows you to type ahead of rn. Ordinarily rn will eat
typeahead to prevent your autorepeating space bar from
doing a very frustrating thing when you accidentally
hold it down. If you don't have a repeating space bar,
or you are working at low baud rate, you can set this
switch to prevent this behavior. You may wish to use
the baud|rate switch modifier below to disable typea-
head only at lower baud rates.
-v sets verification mode for commands. When set, the
command being executed is displayed to give some feed-
back that the key has actually been typed. Useful when
the system is heavily loaded and you give a command
that takes a while to start up.
-/ sets SAVEDIR to "%p/%c" and SAVENAME to "%a", which
means that by default articles are saved in a subdirec-
10/89 Page 21
tory of your private news directory corresponding to
the name of the the current newsgroup, with the
filename being the article number. +/ sets SAVEDIR to
"%p" and SAVENAME to "%^C", which by default saves
Dell V.4/386 Last change: LOCAL 17
RN(1) USER COMMANDS RN(1)
articles directly to your private news directory, with
the filename being the name of the current newsgroup,
first letter capitalized. (Either +/ or -/ may be
default on your system, depending on the feelings of
your news administrator when he, she or it installed
rn.) You may, of course, explicitly set SAVEDIR and
SAVENAME to other values|see discussion in the environ-
ment section.
Any switch may be selectively applied according to the
current baud|rate. Simply prefix the switch with +speed to
apply the switch at that speed or greater, and -speed to
apply the switch at that speed or less. Examples:
-1200-hposted suppresses the Posted line at 1200 baud or
less; +9600-m enables marking at 9600 baud or more. You can
apply the modifier recursively to itself also: +300-1200-t
sets terse mode from 300 to 1200 baud.
Similarly, switches may be selected based on terminal type:
-=vt100+T set +T on vt100
-=tvi920-ETERM=mytvi get a special termcap entry
-=tvi920-ERNMACRO=%./.rnmac.tvi
set up special keymappings
+=paper-v set verify mode if not hardcopy
Some switch arguments, such as environment variable values,
may require spaces in them. Such spaces should be quoted
via ", ', or in the conventional fashion, even when passed
via RNINIT or the & command.
Regular Expressions
The patterns used in article searching are regular expres-
Page 22 10/89
a
n
d
n
o
n
|
b
sions such as those used by ed(1)
o. In addition, 168 an alphanumeric
character and W a nonalphanumeric. uWord
boundaries may be matched by n The bracketing construct ... )
may also be used, and d
igit matches the digit'th substria
ng, where digit can range
from 1 to 9. matches whatever rthe last bracket match
matched. Up to 10 alternative
is may given in a pattern,
separated by , with the caveat te
hat ... ... ) is
illegal. s
Interpretation and Interpolation b
y
Many of the strings that rn handles are subject to interpre-
tations of several types. Under fiB
lename expansion, an ini-
tial "~/" is translated to the name.of your home directory,
and "~name" is translated to the login directory for the
user specified. Filename expansion will also expand an ini-
tial environment variable, and also does the backslash,
Dell V.4/386 Last change: LOCAL 18
RN(1) USER COMMANDS RN(1)
uparrow and percent expansion mentioned below.
All interpreted strings go through backslash, uparrow and
percent interpretation. The backslash escapes are the nor-
mal ones (such as 0 , 0n, etc.). The uparrow escapes
indicate control codes in the normal fashion. Backslashes
or uparrows to be passed through should be escaped with
backslash. The special percent escapes are similar to
printf percent escapes. These cause the substitution of
various run|time values into the string. The following are
currently recognized:
%a Current article number.
%A Full name of current article (%P/%c/%a). (On a Eun-
ice system with the LINKART option, %P/%c/%a returns
the name of the article in the current newsgroup,
while %A returns the real name of the article, which
may be different if the current article was posted
to multiple newsgroups.)
10/89 Page 23
%b Destination of last save command, often a mailbox.
%B The byte offset to the beginning of the part of the
article to be saved, set by the save command. The
's' and 'S' commands set it to 0, and the 'w' and
'W' commands set it to the byte offset of the body
of the article.
%c Current newsgroup, directory form.
%C Current newsgroup, dot form.
%d Full name of newsgroup directory (%P/%c).
%D "Distribution:" line from the current article.
%f "From:" line from the current article, or the
"Reply|To:" line if there is one. This differs
from %t in that comments (such as the full name) are
not stripped out with %f.
%F "Newsgroups:" line for a new article, constructed
from "Newsgroups:" and "Followup|To:" lines of
current article.
%h Name of the header file to pass to the mail or news
poster, containing all the information that the
poster program needs in the form of a message
header. It may also contain a copy of the current
article. The format of the header file is con-
trolled by the MAILHEADER and NEWSHEADER environment
Dell V.4/386 Last change: LOCAL 19
RN(1) USER COMMANDS RN(1)
variables.
%H Host name (your machine's name).
%i "Message|I.D.:" line from the current article, with
<> guaranteed.
Page 24 10/89
%I The reference indication mark (see the -F switch.)
%l The news administrator's login name, if any.
%L Login name (yours).
%m The current mode of rn, for use in conditional mac-
ros.
i Initializing.
n Newsgroup selection level.
a Article selection level (What next?).
p Pager level (MORE prompt).
A Add this newsgroup?
C Catchup confirmation.
D Delete bogus newsgroups?
M Use mailbox format?
R Resubscribe to this newsgroup?
Note that yes/no questions are all upper|case modes.
If, for example, you wanted to disallow defaults on
all yes/no questions, you could define the following
macro:
40 %(%m=[A|Z]?h: )
%M The number of articles marked to return via the 'M'
command. If the same article is Marked multiple
times, "%M" counts it multiple times in the current
implementation.
%n "Newsgroups:" line from the current article.
%N Full name (yours).
%o Organization (yours).
%O Original working directory (where you ran rn from).
%p Your private news directory, normally ~/News.
%P Public news spool directory, normally
/usr/spool/news on systems that don't use NNTP.
Dell V.4/386 Last change: LOCAL 20
10/89 Page 25
RN(1) USER COMMANDS RN(1)
%r Last reference on references line of current article
(parent article id).
%R References list for a new article, constructed from
the references and article ID of the current arti-
cle.
%s Subject, with all Re's and (nf)'s stripped off.
%S Subject, with one "Re:" stripped off.
%t "To:" line derived from the "From:" and "Reply|To:"
lines of the current article. This always returns
an Internet format address.
%T "To:" line derived from the "Path:" line of the
current article to produce a uucp path.
%u The number of unread articles in the current news-
group.
%U The number of unread articles in the current news-
group, not counting the current article.
%x The news library directory.
%X The rn library directory.
%z The length of the current article in bytes.
%~ Your home directory.
%. The directory containing your dot files, which is
your home directory unless the environment variable
DOTDIR is defined when rn is invoked.
%$ Current process number.
%/ Last search string.
%% A percent sign.
%{name} or %{name-default}
The environment variable "name".
%[name] The value of header line "Name:" from the current
article. The "Name: " is not included. For example
"%D" and "%[distribution]" are equivalent. The name
Page 26 10/89
must be spelled out in full.
%`command`
Inserts the output of the command, with any embedded
Dell V.4/386 Last change: LOCAL 21
RN(1) USER COMMANDS RN(1)
newlines translated to space.
%"prompt"
Prints prompt on the terminal, then inputs one
string, and inserts it.
%(test_text=pattern?then_text:else_text)
If test_text matches pattern, has the value
then_text, otherwise else_text. The ":else_text" is
optional, and if absent, interpolates the null
string. The = may be replaced with != to negate the
test. To quote any of the metacharacters ('=', '?',
':', or ')'), precede with a backslash.
%digit The digits 1 through 9 interpolate the string
matched by the nth bracket in the last pattern match
that had brackets. If the last pattern had alterna-
tives, you may not know the number of the bracket
you want|%0 will give you the last bracket matched.
Modifiers: to capitalize the first letter, insert '^':
"%^C" produces something like "Net.jokes". Inserting '_'
causes the first letter following the last '/' to be capi-
talized: "%_c" produces "net/Jokes".
ENVIRONMENT
The following environment variables are paid attention to by
rn. In general the default values assumed for these vari-
ables by rn are reasonable, so if you are using rn for the
first time, you can safely ignore this section. Note that
the defaults below may not correspond precisely to the
defaults on your system. To find the actual defaults you
would need to look in config.h and common.h in the rn source
directory, and the file INIT in the rn library.
10/89 Page 27
Those variables marked (%) are subject to % interpolation,
and those marked (~) are subject to both % interpolation and
~ interpretation.
ATTRIBUTION (%)
Gives the format of the attribution line in front of
the quoted article included by an F command.
Default: In article %i %f writes:
CANCEL (~)
The shell command used to cancel an article.
Default: inews -h < %h
CANCELHEADER (%)
The format of the file to pass to the CANCEL command
Dell V.4/386 Last change: LOCAL 22
RN(1) USER COMMANDS RN(1)
in order to cancel an article.
Default:
Newsgroups: %n
Subject: cmsg cancel %i
References: %R
Reply|To: %L@%H (%N)
Distribution: %D
Organization: %o
%i cancelled from rn.
DOTDIR Where to find your dot files, if they aren't in your
home directory. Can be interpolated using "%.".
Default: $HOME
EDITOR (~)
The name of your editor, if VISUAL is undefined.
Default: whatever your news administrator compiled
Page 28 10/89
in, usually vi.
FIRSTLINE (%)
Controls the format of the line displayed at the top
of an article. Warning: this may go away.
Default: Article %a %(%U%M!=^00$?(%U more%(%M!=^0$?
+ %M Marked to return)) )in %C:, more or less.
HIDELINE
If defined, contains a regular expression which
matches article lines to be hidden, in order, for
instance, to suppress quoted material. A recom-
mended string for this purpose is "^>...", which
doesn't hide lines with only '>', to give some indi-
cation that quoted material is being skipped. If
you want to hide more than one pattern, you can use
"|" to separate the alternatives. You can view the
hidden lines by restarting the article with the 'v'
command.
There is some overhead involved in matching each
line of the article against a regular expression.
You might wish to use a baud|rate modifier to enable
this feature only at low baud rates.
Default: undefined
HOME Your home directory. Affects ~ interpretation, and
the location of your dot files if DOTDIR is not
defined.
Dell V.4/386 Last change: LOCAL 23
RN(1) USER COMMANDS RN(1)
Default: $LOGDIR
KILLGLOBAL (~)
Where to find the KILL file to apply to every news-
group. See the '^K' command at the newsgroup selec-
tion level.
10/89 Page 29
Default: %p/KILL
KILLLOCAL (~)
Where to find the KILL file for the current news-
group. See the commands 'K' and '^K' at the article
selection level, and the search modifier 'K'.
Default: %p/%c/KILL
LOGDIR Your home directory if HOME is undefined. Affects ~
interpretation, and the location of your dot files
if DOTDIR is not defined.
Default: none.
Explanation: you must have either $HOME or $LOGDIR.
LOGNAME Your login name, if USER is undefined. May be
interpolated using "%L".
Default: value of getlogin().
MAILCALL (~)
What to say when there is new mail.
Default: (Mail)
MAILFILE (~)
Where to check for mail.
Default: /usr/spool/mail/%L
MAILHEADER (%)
The format of the header file for replies. See also
MAILPOSTER.
Default:
To: %T
Subject: %(%i=^$?:Re: %S
Newsgroups: %n
In|Reply|To: %i)
%(%[references]!=^$?References: %[references]
)Organization: %o
Cc:
Dell V.4/386 Last change: LOCAL 24
Page 30 10/89
RN(1) USER COMMANDS RN(1)
Bcc:
MAILPOSTER (~)
The shell command to be used by the reply commands
(r and R) in order to allow you to enter and deliver
the response. Rn will not itself call upon an edi-
tor for replies|this is a function of the program
called by rn. See also MAILHEADER.
Default: Rnmail -h %h
MBOXSAVER (~)
The shell command to save an article in mailbox for-
mat.
Default: %X/mbox.saver %A %P %c %a %B %C "%b" "From:
%T %`date`"
Explanation: the first seven arguments are the same
as for NORMSAVER. The eighth argument to the shell
script is the new From: line for the article,
including the posting date, derived either directly
from the Posted: line, or not|so|directly from the
Date: line. Header munging at its finest.
MODSTRING
The string to insert in the group summary line,
which heads each article, for a moderated group.
See also NOPOSTRING.
Default: " (moderated)"
NAME Your full name. May be interpolated using "%N".
Default: name from /etc/passwd, or ~/.fullname.
NEWSHEADER (%)
The format of the header file for followups. See
also NEWSPOSTER.
Default:
Newsgroups: %(%F=^$?%C:%F)
Subject: %(%S=^$?%"0ubject: ":Re: %S)
Summary:
Expires:
%(%R=^$?:References: %R
)Sender:
10/89 Page 31
Reply|To: %L@%H (%N)
Followup|To:
Distribution: %(%i=^$?%"0istribution: ":%D)
Organization: %o
Dell V.4/386 Last change: LOCAL 25
RN(1) USER COMMANDS RN(1)
Keywords:
NEWSPOSTER (~)
The shell command to be used by the followup com-
mands (f and F) in order to allow you to enter and
post a followup news article. Rn will not itself
call upon an editor for followups|this is a function
of the program called by rn. See also NEWSHEADER.
Default: Pnews -h %h
NEWSRC Your newsgroup subscription list.
Default: $HOME/.newsrc
NNTPSERVER
The hostname of your NNTPSERVER. [This does not
apply unless you are running the NNTP version of
rn.]
Default: the hostname listed in the server file,
usually /usr/local/lib/rn/server.
NOPOSTRING
The string to insert in the group summary line,
which heads each article, for a group to which local
posting is not allowed. See also MODSTRING.
Default: " (no posting)"
NORMSAVER (~)
The shell command to save an article in the normal
(non|mailbox) format.
Page 32 10/89
Default: %X/norm.saver %A %P %c %a %B %C "%b"
ORGANIZATION
Either the name of your organization, or the name of
a file containing the name of your organization.
May be interpolated using "%o".
Default: whatever your news administrator compiled
in.
PAGESTOP
If defined, contains a regular expression which
matches article lines to be treated as form|feeds.
There are at least two things you might want to do
with this. To cause page breaks between articles in
a digest, you might define it as "^||||||||". To
force a page break before a signature, you could
define it as "^|| $". (Then, when you see "||" at
Dell V.4/386 Last change: LOCAL 26
RN(1) USER COMMANDS RN(1)
the bottom of the page, you can skip the signature
if you so desire by typing 'n' instead of space.)
To do both, you could use "^||". If you want to
break on more than one pattern, you can use "|" to
separate the alternatives.
There is some overhead involved in matching each
line of the article against a regular expression.
You might wish to use a baud|rate modifier to enable
this feature only at low baud rates.
Default: undefined
PIPESAVER (%)
The shell command to execute in order to accomplish
a save to a pipe ("s | command" or "w | command").
The command typed by the user is substituted in as
%b.
Default: %(%B=^0$?<%A:tail +%Bc %A |) %b
10/89 Page 33
Explanation: if %B is 0, the command is "<%A %b",
otherwise the command is "tail +%Bc %A | %b".
RNINIT Default values for switches may be passed to rn by
placing them in RNINIT. Any switch that is set in
RNINIT may be overruled on the command line, or via
the '&' command from within rn. Binary|valued
switches that are set with "-switch" may be unset
using "+switch".
If RNINIT begins with a '/' it is assumed to be the
name of a file containing switches. If you want to
set many environment variables but don't want to
keep them all in your environment, or if the use of
any of these variables conflicts with other pro-
grams, you can use this feature along with the -E
switch to set the environment variables upon
startup.
Default: " ".
RNMACRO (~)
The name of the file containing macros and key map-
pings. See the MACROS section.
Default: %./.rnmac
SAVEDIR (~)
The name of the directory to save to, if the save
command does not specify a directory name.
Dell V.4/386 Last change: LOCAL 27
RN(1) USER COMMANDS RN(1)
Default:
If -/ is set: %p/%c
If +/ is set: %p
SAVENAME (%)
The name of the file to save to, if the save command
contains only a directory name.
Page 34 10/89
Default:
If -/ is set: %a
If +/ is set: %^C
SHELL The name of your preferred shell. It will be used
by the '!', 'S' and 'W' commands.
Default: whatever your news administrator compiled
in.
SUBJLINE (%)
Controls the format of the lines displayed by the
'=' command at the article selection level.
Default: %s
TERM Determines which termcap entry to use, unless
TERMCAP contains the entry.
TERMCAP Holds either the name of your termcap file, or a
termcap entry.
Default: /etc/termcap, normally.
USER Your login name. May be interpolated using "%L".
Default: $LOGNAME
VISUAL (~)
The name of your editor.
Default: $EDITOR
YOUSAID (%)
Gives the format of the attribution line in front of
the quoted article included by an R command.
Default: In article %i you write:
MACROS
When rn starts up, it looks for a file containing macro
definitions (see environment variable RNMACRO). Any
sequence of commands may be bound to any sequence of keys,
so you could remap your entire keyboard if you desire.
Dell V.4/386 Last change: LOCAL 28
10/89 Page 35
RN(1) USER COMMANDS RN(1)
Blank lines or lines beginning with # in the macro file are
considered comments; otherwise rn looks for two fields
separated by white space. The first field gives the
sequence of keystrokes that trigger the macro, and the
second field gives the sequence of commands to execute.
Both fields are subject to % interpolation, which will also
translate backslash and uparrow sequences. (The keystroke
field is interpreted at startup time, but the command field
is interpreted at macro execution time so that you may refer
to % values in a macro.) For example, if you want to
reverse the roles of carriage return and space in rn
^J 40
^M 40
40 ^J
will do just that. By default, all characters in the com-
mand field are interpreted as the canonical rn characters,
i.e. no macro expansion is done. Otherwise the above pair
of macros would cause an infinite loop. To force macro
expansion in the command field, enclose the macro call with
^( ... ^) thusly:
@s |mysavescript
@w w^(@s^)
You can use the %() conditional construct to construct mac-
ros that work differently under different circumstances. In
particular, the current mode (%m) of rn could be used to
make a command that only works at a particular level. For
example,
^[[O %(%m=p? 40)
will only allow the macro to work at the pager level.
%(%{TERM}=vt100?^[[O) /^J
will do the binding only if the terminal type is vt100,
though if you have many of these it would be better to have
separate files for each terminal.
If you want to bind a macro to a function key that puts a
common garbage character after the sequence (such as the
carriage return on the end of Televideo 920 function
sequences), DO NOT put the carriage return into all the
sequences or you will waste a CONSIDERABLE amount of inter-
nal storage. Instead of "^AF^M", put "^AF+1", which indi-
Page 36 10/89
cates to rn that it should gobble up one character after the
F.
Dell V.4/386 Last change: LOCAL 29
RN(1) USER COMMANDS RN(1)
AUTHOR
Larry Wall <lwall@jpl|devvax.jpl.nasa.gov>
Stan Barber <sob@bcm.tmc.edu>
Regular expression routines are borrowed from emacs, by
James Gosling.
FILES
%./.newsrc status of your news reading
%./.oldnewsrc
backup copy of your .newsrc from start of ses-
sion
%./.rnlock lock file so you don't screw up your .newsrc
%./.rnlast info from last run of rn
%./.rnsoft soft pointers into /usr/lib/news/active to speed
startup, synchronous with .newsrc
%./.rnhead temporary header file to pass to a mailer or
news poster
%./.rnmac macro and keymap definitions
%p your news save directory, usually ~/News
%x/active the list of active newsgroups, usually
/usr/lib/news/active on systems that don't use
NNTP
%P the public news spool directory, usually
/usr/spool/news on systems that don't use NNTP
10/89 Page 37
%X/INIT system|wide default switches
SEE ALSO
newsrc(5), more(1), readnews(1), Pnews(1), Rnmail(1)
DIAGNOSTICS
Generally self|documenting, as they say.
BUGS
The -h switch can only hide header lines that rn knows
about.
The '-' command doesn't cross newsgroup boundaries, and only
undoes the last article selection.
If you edit your .newsrc while rn is running, rn will hap-
pily wipe out your changes when it decides to write out the
.newsrc file.
Dell V.4/386 Last change: LOCAL 30
RN(1) USER COMMANDS RN(1)
Rn doesn't do certain things (like ordering articles on
posting date) that the author feels should be handled by
inews.
Marking of duplicate articles as read in cross|referenced
newsgroups will not work unless the Xref patch is installed
in inews.
If you get carried away with % or escape substitutions, you
can overflow buffers.
There should be no fixed limit on the number of newsgroups.
Some of the more esoteric features may be missing on
machines with limited address space.
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