FILECHAN(8)

💅 FILECHAN(8) — like, the file-writing backend for InterNetNews, bestie

okay so this is filechan, from the System Manager's Manual, and honestly? she's iconic in a very specific, niche way. buckle up 🎀

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✨ NAME ✨

filechan — the file-writing backend for InterNetNews. that's it, that's the whole vibe. 🦋

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

filechan [ -d directory ] [ -f fields ] [ -m mapfile ] [ -p pidfile ]

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💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

so here's the tea: filechan reads lines from standard input and copies certain fields in each line into files named by other fields within the line. like, the line literally tells her where to go. main character energy fr fr.

filechan is intended to be called by innd(8) as a channel feed. and no, before you ask — she is not a full exploder and does not accept commands. if you want the whole rundown on the difference, go read newsfeeds(5), and if you're looking for an actual exploder program, that's buffchan(8). iykyk. 💅

filechan input is interpreted as a set of lines. each line contains 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. slay. ✨

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. so one line in, many files out. multitasking queen 👑

when writing to a file, filechan opens it in append 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. attentive to detail, we love to see it 🫶

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🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

• -f — the -f flag may be used to specify a different number of fields. lowkey the most important knob here tbh.
• -d — by default, filechan writes its arguments into the directory /var/spool/news/out.going. the -d flag may be used to specify a directory the program should change to before starting. new location, same energy 🦋
• -p — if the -p flag is used, the program will write a line containing its process ID (in text) to the specified file. pid file era 💀

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okay so here's the demo, and it's giving chef's kiss 🍓

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>

see how that works? she ate and left no crumbs 💅

because the time window in which a file is open is very small, complicated flushing and locking protocols are not needed; a mv(1) followed by a sleep(1) for a couple of seconds is sufficient. no cap, that's genuinely all you need. 🙈

• -m — 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 above to the full domain names:

# This is a comment
uunet:news.uu.net
foo:foo.com
munnari:munnari.oz.au

glow-up complete ✨🌈

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👑 HISTORY 👑

written by Robert Elz <kre@munnari.oz.au>, flags added by Rich $alz <rsalz@uunet.uu.net>. this is revision 1.19, dated 1996/10/29. legends only, honestly. 🫶

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

buffchan(8), innd(8), newsfeeds(5).

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💀 reminder bestie: filechan is not a full exploder and does not accept commands. don't come for her with commands, she will simply not respond. periodt.

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and that's the whole page, mwah 💖 — brought to you by the System Manager's Manual, FILECHAN(8), revision 1.19, dated 1996/10/29. go read it again if you skipped the examples, i will know 🧚