GOPHERRC(5)

💖 GOPHERRC(5) — File Formats Manual 💖

okay bestie, listen up, because this is the configuration file for gopher(1) and honestly? she's iconic. this is the gopherrc page, and we're gonna get you fluent, no cap. 🎀

🌸 NAME 🌸

gopherrc — configuration file for gopher(1)

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

So like, the gopherrc file is a whole list of directives that change how the gopher(1) client behaves. Think of it as her settings app but make it text. Every line looks like this:

Token: Value

Tokens are case insensitive (she does not care about your capitalization, periodt) and the value field is gonna shift depending on which token you're using. Also, a pound sign (#) at the beginning of a line means that whole line is a comment. Commentary. Vibes only, no instructions. 💅

Now here's the tea: gopherrc files live in a bunch of different places, and the way that there are multiple of them is very main character.

• There's a global gopherrc file, literally called gopherrc. She usually lives in a systemwide directory. 👑
• There's a file with the exact same format called remotegopher.rc, and the gopher client uses this one whenever you're using the -r switch.
• And also, every individual person has their own customized version of this file sitting in their home directory as .gopherrc. On VMS, this file is called GOPHERRC. (no dot, she's different there, we respect it 🦋)

All of these files use the format described below. fr fr.

Most people are never gonna hand-edit this file, and that's fine. You just press the 'O' key to set options inside the curses gopher client instead. That's the whole move. But if you are out here thinking about editing this file on VMS, bestie, please make sure your editor preserves the Stream_LF format of the file. Do not let your editor do her own thing. 😭

🧚 Quick pseudo grammar 🧚

map: <content type>,<display command>,<print command>
SearchBolding: <yes|no>
Bookmarks:
<bookmarks>

🎀 The following tokens are recognized 🎀

• map: — maps a content type (think text/plain, or image/gif) to the commands that get executed to display the document or print the document. i.e. that's the whole job.

The content type, the display command, and the printing command are separated by commas.

The sequence %s gets replaced with the filename of a temporary file that contains the document to be printed or viewed. Like a lil swap-in. 🔥

If the command starts with the vertical bar (|), then the command is executed immediately and the document gets sent to the command's standard input. Note — this feature does not work on VMS. Just so you know.

If the display command is set to 'builtin', then the text file pager inside the gopher client is used to display the item. Homegrown. Local. 💖

• SearchBolding: — controls the client's display of search terms. If the value is 'yes', then search words get bolded. Otherwise, they're left alone. That's it, that's the setting.
• Bookmarks: — the bookmarks in .link format follow this token. For more info on what a .link file's format actually looks like, go consult the gopherd(8) manual page. iykyk. 📚

🍓 Sample gopherrc file: 🍓

 map: text/plain,builtin,lpr %s
 map: image/gif,xv %s,
 Bookmarks:
 Type=1
 Name=Bookmark #1
 Host=gopher.tc.umn.edu
 Port=70
 Path=
 #
 Type=0+
 Name=textfile
 Host=foo.com
 Path=0/readme
 Port=70

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

• Media Type Registration Procedure, March 1994, RFC 1590
• gopher(1), gopherd(8)

and that's the whole page, bestie, you ate that. 💅 this was GOPHERRC(5) — File Formats Manual — with all the love and all the options intact. go configure something gorgeous. 🫶✨