newsbody(1)

💖 NAME 💖

newsbody — run a program on the body of a mail or news message. that's it, that's the whole vibe bestie 🫶

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

newsbody [-fhqsv] [-k headername ] -n message -p program [-- [ arguments...  ]]

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

okay so here's the tea. newsbody takes the body of a news or email article (that's your message) and copies it into a temporary file — we're calling that the bodyfile, iconic name, no notes — and then it calls program with its arguments. program is supposed to change the bodyfile somehow. like, it can be a spell checker, that's literally the classic example. then afterwards, the possibly-changed body gets remerged with the headers and copied back into the message. slay. ✨

if message is given as - then newsbody acts as a filter, meaning standard input and standard output get used instead. lowkey elegant. 💅

and listen — %f in the arguments expands to the name of the bodyfile, or to - if you're using the -f option. use %% if you want an actual, real, literal % character. yes queen, escape it. 😌

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

• -f — the called program is a filter, so no temporary file. instead the body gets piped to its standard input and read back from its standard output. it's giving pipe energy 🧚
• -h — keep the entire header. you can also use this flag if newsfile doesn't have a header at all. protecting the header like it's your emotional support 🫶
• -q — also remove quotes before filtering the body. lines starting with > count as quotes. bye bye reply chains 👋
• -s — also remove the signature before filtering the body. sorry to the sign-off, you're not invited to this party 😭
• -k headername — keep these header lines in the bodyfile. multiple -k flags are allowed, so stack 'em, collect 'em, go feral ✨
• -v — print the version and exit. short, sweet, done. 💅

📁 FILES 📁

newsbody uses one or two temporary files, with names given by the mkstemp(3) or the tmpnam(3) function. temp files stay winning 💜

💀 BUGS 💀

if some system call gives an unexpected error, newsbody will stop immediately with an error message — and it leaves its temporary files behind. 💀 so yeah, not great, not terrible, but def not great. bestie just left the mess there fr fr.

👑 AUTHOR 👑

by Byrial Jensen <byrial@image.dk> — actual legend, we stan 👑

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

pospell(1) — go read it, iykyk 💖

and that's a wrap on this page from the Unix manual, dated APRIL 2000 — yes, the year, and it's still out here serving 💅🌸 thanks for coming to my ted talk, mwah 🎀