NAME
prunehistory - Remove tokens from Usenet history file
SYNOPSIS
prunehistory [-p] [-f filename]
DESCRIPTION
prunehistory modifies a history(5)-format text file to "remove" a set
of tokens from it. The tokens are removed by overwriting them with
spaces, so that the size and position of any following entries does not
change. This has an effect similar to expiring the article, in that it
is still mentioned in the history database but cannot be retrieved.
prunehistory reads the standard input. The input is taken as a set of
lines. Blank lines and lines starting with a number sign ("#") are
ignored. All other lines should consist of a message-ID followed by
zero or more other fields (which are ignored). The message-ID is used
as the dbz(3) key to get an offset into the text file. Since innd only
appends to the text file, prunehistory does not need to have any
interaction with it.
OPTIONS
-p prunehistory will normally complain about lines that do not follow
the correct format. If the -p flag is used, then the program will
silently print any invalid lines on its standard output. (Blank
lines and comment lines are also passed through.)
This can be useful when prunehistory is used as a filter for other
programs such as reap (a legacy program, probably no longer useful
with current versions of INN, but still available at
<ftp://ftp.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/.subdisc1/local/jk.collection/>).
-f filename
The default name of the history file is pathdb/history; to specify
a different name, use the -f flag.
HISTORY
Written by Rich $alz <rsalz@uunet.uu.net> for InterNetNews. Converted
to POD by Julien Elie.
$Id: prunehistory.pod 8592 2009-08-20 23:46:25Z eagle $
SEE ALSO
dbz(3), history(5), innd(8).