WRITELOG(8)

✨ WRITELOG 💅

okay so bestie, this is the man page for the writelog command from InterNetNews — it's literally just "Write or mail a log entry" and it's about to be your new fave little script 🎀

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

writelog name text

two arguments, that's it, no cap 👑

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💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

The writelog script is used to write a log entry or send it as mail. That's the whole vibe. ✨

The name parameter specifies the name of the log file where the entry should be written. Easy.

BUT — plot twist 🫢 — if name is the word "mail", then the entry is sent as the subject of a mail to the newsmaster address specified with --with-news-master at configure time (the default address is "usenet"). iykyk 📬

And if name is "/dev/null", the script does nothing and exits. Truly the "not me, not today" of file paths 😭💀

The data that is written to a log file consists of the text given on the command line, followed by standard input indented by four spaces. Like, four whole spaces. Respect the indent 🫶

When sent by mail, the subject is text and the body is standard input without indentation. Different format, different moment, same icon energy 💅

shlock(8) is used to avoid simultaneous updates to a single log file. Basically it's the bouncer at the club keeping two processes from writing over each other at the exact same time — obsessed 🧚

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🌈 HISTORY 🌈

Written by Landon Curt Noll <chongo@toad.com> and Rich $alz <rsalz@uunet.uu.net> for InterNetNews. Rewritten into POD by Julien Elie. legends, all of them 👑

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⭐ SEE ALSO ⭐

• innd(8)
• innstat(8)
• news.daily(8)
• newslog(5)
• nnrpd(8)
• scanlogs(8)

go read those too, bestie, they're all part of the ecosystem 🌸

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fr fr that's the whole page — no hidden flags, no secret defaults, just name and text doing their thing 💜

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mwah 💋 this cutie was brought to you by INN 2.7.4, dated 2025-05-09 — slay, see you in the next man page! 🦋