archie/prospero/doc/man/archie.man

.TH ARCHIE 1 "20 August 1991" "Archie (Prospero)"
.SH NAME
archie \- query archie anonymous ftp databases using Prospero
.SH SYNOPSIS
.in +\w'\fBarchie \fR'u
.ti -\w'\fBarchie \fR'u
.B archie\
\ [\ \fB\-cers\fR\ ]\
\ [\ \fB\-l\fR\ ]\ [\ \fB\-t\fR\ ]\
\ [\ \fB\-m\fR\ \fI#\fR\ ]\ [\ \fB\-N\fR\ \fI#\fR\ ]\
\ [\ \fB\-H\fR\ \fIhost\fR\ ]\ \fIstring\fR
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B archie
queries an archie anonymous ftp database looking for the specified
.I string
using the
.B Prospero
protocol.  This client is based on
.B Prospero
version
.BR Alpha.5.2 .


The general method of use is

.RS
%
.B archie string
.RE
.PP

For example,

.RS
%
.B archie emacs
.RE
.PP

will find all anonymous FTP sites in the archie database that have a file
named
.B emacs
in their system's FTP area (emacs must be the entire last component
of the name of the file or directory).  Regular expressions, such as

.RS
%
.B archie -r '[xX][lL]isp'
.RE
.PP

may also be used for searches.  (See the manual of a reasonably good
editor, like GNU Emacs or vi, for more information on using regular
expressions.)

.SH OPTIONS
The options currently available to this
.B archie
client are:

.PD 0
.TP 12
.BR \-c
Search substrings paying attention to upper & lower case.
.TP
.BR \-e
Exact string match.  (This is the default.)
.TP
.BR \-r
Search using a regular expression.
.TP
.BR \-s
Search substrings ignoring the case of the letters.
.TP
.BR \-l
Output results in a form suitable for parsing by programs.
.TP
.BR \-t
Sort the results inverted by date.
.TP
.BI \-m\ number
Specifies the maximum \fInumber\fP of hits (matches) to return.  By
default, this value is 95.
.TP
.BI -N #
Sets the "niceness" of a query; by default, it's set to 0.
Without an argument, \fB\-N\fR defaults to 35765.  If you use
\fB\-N\fR with an argument between 0 and 35765, it'll adjust itself
accordingly.
.TP
.BI \-H\ host
Tells the client to query the Archie server named \fIhost\fP.

.SH WARNING

Unfortunately, this manual page was last updated for the archie client
based upon Prospero Beta.4.2.  This file does not contain lies, but it
also does not cover the new Archie 3 features of the current client;
there's a big comment close to the start of the source file
\fBuser/archie/archie.c\fR that should be merged in at this point.
Type just .BR \*(lqarchie\*(rq to get a list of the current supported
options.

.SH QUERY PRIORITY
Please use the \fB\-N\fR option whenever you don't demand immediacy, or
when you're requesting things that could generate large responses.
Even when using the nice option, you should still try to avoid big
jobs during busy periods.  Here is a list of what we consider to be
nice values that accurately reflect the priority of a job to the server.

.RS
.TP 20
.B Normal
0
.TP
.B Nice
500
.TP
.B Nicer
1000
.TP
.B Very Nice
5000
.TP
.B Extremely Nice
10000
.TP
.B Nicest
32765
.RE

The last priority, \fBNicest\fR, would be used when a job should wait until
the queue is essentially empty before running.  You should pick one of
these values to use, possibly modifying it slightly depending on where
you think your priority should land.  For example, 32760 would mean
wait until the queue is empty, but jump ahead of other jobs that have
selected \fBNicest\fR.

There are certain types of things that we suggest using \fBNicest\fR
for, irregardless.  In particular, any searches for which you would
have a hard time justifying the use of anything but extra resources.
(We all know what those searches would be for.)

.SH NOTES
The three search-modifying arguments (\fB\-c\fR, \fB\-r\fB, and \fB\-s\fR)
are all mutually exclusive; only the last one counts.  If you specify
\fB\-e\fR with any of \fB\-c\fR, \fB\-r\fB, or \fB\-s\fR,
the server will first check for an exact match, then fall back to the
case-sensitive, case-insensitive, or regular expression search.  This is
so if there are matches that are particularly obvious, it will take a
minimal amount of time to satisfy your request.

If you list a single `\-' by itself, any further arguments will be
taken as part of the search string.  This is intended to enable
searching for strings that begin with a `\-'; for example:

.RS
%
.B archie \-s \- \-old
.RE

will search for all filenames that contain the string `\-old' in them.

.SH RESPONSE
Archie servers are set up to respond to a number of requests in a
queued fashion.  That is, smaller requests get served much more
quickly than do large requests.  As a result, the more often you query
the Archie server, or the larger your requests, the longer the queue
will become, resulting in a longer waiting period for everyone's
requests.  Please be frugal when possible, for your benefit as well as
for the other users.

.SH SEE ALSO
For more information on regular expressions, see the man[ual] pages on:

.BR regex (3) ,
.BR ed (1)

.SH AUTHORS
The 
.B archie
service was conceived and implemented by Alan Emtage
(bajan@bunyip.com) and Peter Deutsch (peterd@bunyip.com).  The
entire Internet is in their debt.

This
.BR archie 
client was written by Clifford Neuman (bcn@isi.edu)
with changes by Brendan Kehoe (brendan@cs.widener.edu) and
George Ferguson (ferguson@cs.rochester.edu).

The man page was originally written by Jeff Kellem
.BR (composer@chem.bu.edu),
and later modified by Brendan Kehoe.