FILECHAN(8)



FILECHAN(8)                 System Manager's Manual                FILECHAN(8)

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 de-
       scription of the difference, and buffchan(8) for an exploder program.)

       Filechan input is interpreted as a sequence of lines.  Each  line  con-
       tains  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 ap-
       pend 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, compli-
       cated 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  start-
              ing.

       -p pidfile
              If  the  ``-p'' flag is used, the program will write a line con-
              taining 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).

                                                                   FILECHAN(8)

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