ARCHIE

NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

The system can be accessed in an interactive fashion or via electronic mail.  

Using the Interactive Interface

1)

Connect to host archie.mcgill.ca (132.206.2.3 or 132.206.51.1) with telnet(1).

2)

Login as user archie (no capitals, no password required). The system prints a banner message and status report.

3)

Type ``help'' for further information.

For full details, refer to the section entitled THE INTERACTIVE INTERFACE which appears below.  

Using the Electronic Mail Interface

archie@archie.mcgill.ca

Send the word ``help'' in a message to obtain a list of available commands and features. This is a completely automated interface, acting without human intervention.

For full details, refer to the section entitled THE ELECTRONIC MAIL INTERFACE which appears below.  

Communicating with the Database Administrators

archie-l@archie.mcgill.ca

Communications requesting additions to the set of hosts surveyed for the database, modifications to the Software Description Database, or pertaining to other administrative matters, should be sent to:

archie-admin@archie.mcgill.ca

THE INTERACTIVE INTERFACE

Commands

help

List the valid archie commands.

list [pattern]

List the sites currently stored in the database, and the time at which they were last updated. The optional regular expression argument can be used to limit the list to specific sites.

Note that the numerical (IP) address associated with a site name is valid at the listed time, but may have been changed. Furthermore, the listed IP address is the primary address as listed in the DNS database (secondary addresses are not stored).

Example:

list

lists all sites in the database, while

list \.de$

lists all German sites.

mail [address1,[address2...]]

Mail the output of the last command to the specified address or comma-separated list of addresses (no spaces must appear in the address list).

Example:

mail user1@hello.edu,user2@goodbye.com

In the absence of an argument, the mail is sent to the address specified by the mailto variable.

Example:

mail

Conventional Internet addressing styles are understood. BITNET sites should use the convention:

user@sitename.bitnet

UUCP addresses can be specified as

user@sitename.uucp

prog pattern

Find all occurrences of programs with names matching pattern. The interpretation of pattern depends upon the value of the search variable. The output lists the names of hosts with matching entries, the size of the matching program, its last modification date, and its path. The results are sorted according to the value of the sortby variable, and are limited in number by the maxhits variable.

set variable-name

Set the specified variable. See the section below concerning available variables, as well as the entries for unset and show.

show [variable-name]

Display the value of a particular variable. If no variable is specified, display all variables.

Example:

show maxhits

site sitename

Produce a full table of contents for a specified ftp(1) site in the archie database. The output format is similar to that of the UNIX command:

ls -lR

Example:

site col.hp.com

unset variable

Remove any value associated with the specified variable. This may cause counter-intuitive behavior in some cases; for example, if maxhits is not defined by the user, prog will print the default number of matches rather than an unlimited number of matches.

whatis substring

Search the Software Description Database for the given substring, ignoring case. This database consists of names and short descriptions of many software packages, documents (like RFCs and educational material), and data files stored on the Internet.

Example:

whatis uucp

in part gives as a result:

findpath.sh UUCP Pathfinder
logfile-stats UUCP LOGFILE analyzer
mapstats UUCP map statistics program

Variable Types

boolean

(Set or unset)

numeric

(Integer within a defined range)

string

(String of characters, may or may not be restricted).

Boolean Variables

pager

Filter all output through the pager less(1L) (default: unset). When using the pager you may also want to set the term variable to your terminal type (see term variable).

Example:

set pager

status

During the database search, display a status-line containing the number of matches and percentage of the database searched (default: set).

Numeric Variables

autologout

Set the length of idle time (in minutes) allowed before automatic logout (permissible range: 1-300; default: 60).

Example:

set autologout 45

logs the user out after 45 minutes of idle time.

maxhits

Allow the prog command to generate at most the specified number of matches (permissible range: 0-1000; default: 1000). Set this to a smaller value if archie is too slow.

Example:

set maxhits 100

halts prog after 100 matches have been found.

String Variables

mailto

If the mail(1) command is issued with no arguments, mail the output of the last command to the address specified by this string variable, which may contain a single mail address, or a comma-separated list of addresses (lists must not contain whitespace).

Example:

set mailto user@frobozz.com

Example:

set mailto user1@hello.edu,user2@goodbye.com

Conventional Internet addressing styles are understood. BITNET sites should use the convention:

user@sitename.bitnet

UUCP addresses can be specified as

user@sitename.uucp

search

Define the type of search to be performed by the prog command. The following values are permitted:

exact

Exact match (the fastest method). A match occurs if the file (or directory) name in the database corresponds exactly to the user-given substring (including case).

For example, this type of search could be used to locate all xlock.tar.Z files.

regex

Allow user-specified (search) strings to take the form of ed(1) regular expressions (the default search method).

Note: unless specifically anchored to the beginning (with ^) or end (with $) of a line, ed(1) regular expressions (effectively) have ``.*'' prepended and appended to them. For example, it is not necessary to type

prog .*xnlock.*

because

prog xnlock

suffices. In this instance, the regex match is equivalent a simple substring match. Those unfamiliar with regular expressions should refer to the section entitled REGULAR EXPRESSIONS which appears below.

sub

Substring (case insensitive). A match occurs if the file (or directory) name in the database contains the user-given substring, without regard to case.

Example:

The pattern:

is

matches any of the following:

islington
this
poison

subcase

Substring (case sensitive). As above, but taking case as significant.

Example:

The pattern:

TeX

will match:

LaTeX

but neither of the following:

Latex
TExTroff

sortby

Set the method of sorting to be applied to output from prog. Typing the keyboard interrupt character (generally Ctl-C on UNIX hosts) aborts a search. Results obtained to that point will be sorted according to the sortby variable and sent as output. The output phase may be aborted by typing the abort character a second time. The five permitted methods (and their associated reverse orders) are:

none

Unsorted (default; no reverse order, though rnone is accepted)

filename

Sort files/directories by name, using lexical order (reverse order: rfilename)

hostname

Sort on the archive hostname, in lexical order (reverse order: rhostname)

size

Sort by size, largest files/directories first (reverse order: rsize)

time

Sort by modification time, with the most recent file/directory names first (reverse order: rtime)

term

Specify the type of terminal in use (and optionally, its size in rows and columns). This information is used by the pager.

The usage is:

set term <terminal-type> [<#rows> [<#columns>]]

The terminal type is mandatory, but the number of rows and columns is optional; specify either rows only, or both rows and columns (default: 24 rows, 80 columns).

Examples:

set term vt100
set term xterm 60
set term xterm 24 100

THE ELECTRONIC MAIL INTERFACE

compress

Process the mail message with the compress(1) and uuencode(1) programs. Upon receiving the reply, the recipient should remove the mail header and run the rest of the file through uudecode(1), producing a file with a name of the form:

file.Z

Process this file with uncompress(1) to obtain the results of the request.

help

Send a message describing how to use the email interface.

path path

Override the return address that would normally be extracted from the header. The path describes how to mail a message from cs.mcgill.ca, which is fully connected to the Internet, to your address. Consider adding a path command to a request to provide an explicit return address if the archie server does not respond to the original request within several hours. BITNET users should use the convention:

user@site.bitnet

UUCP users should use the convention:

user@site.uucp

prog <reg exp1> [<reg exp2> ...]

Search of database for each (an ed(1)-style) regular expression, and return any matches. Multiple regular expressions may be placed on one line, in which case the results will be mailed back in one message. Where regular expressions appear on multiple lines, multiple messages will be returned, one for each line (not working correctly yet). Any regular expression containing spaces must be quoted with single or double quotes. Searches are case sensitive. The prog command is executed as if the search variable were set to regex. Those unfamiliar with regular expressions should refer to the section entitled REGULAR EXPRESSIONS which appears below.

quit

Stop interpreting the request. This prevents the inadvertent interpretation of text in an email signature which might accidentally resemble a valid archie command.

site <site name> | <site IP address>

Return a list of the contents of the specified <site name>. The fully qualified domain name or IP address may be used.

list<reg exp1> [<reg exp2> ...]

List all of the sites names currently stored in the database that match <reg exp> (an ed(1)-style) regular expression, and return any matches. The format of the resulting list is: site name, site IP address and date last updated in the database.

whatis <substring1> [<substring2> ...]

Search the Software Description Database (SDD) for <substring> The SDD is a text database containing the names and short descriptions of about 3500 software packages, documents and datasets available on the Internet. If you have any corrections or additions, mail them to

archie-admin@archie.mcgill.ca

Multiple <substring> arguments may be placed on the same whatis command line.

REGULAR EXPRESSIONS

The rules governing regular expression are:

c

A character c matches itself unless it has been assigned a special meaning as listed below. A special character loses its special meaning when preceded by the character '\'. This does not apply to '{', which is non-special until it is so treated. Thus, although '*' normally has special meaning, the string '\*' matches itself.

Example:

The pattern

acdef

matches any of the following:

s83acdeffff
acdefsecs
acdefsecs

but neither of the following:

accdef
aacde1f

Example:

Normally the characters '*' and '$' are special, but the pattern

a\*bse\$

acts as above. Any reference string containing:

a*bse$

as a substring will be flagged as a match.

.

A period (known as a wildcard character) matches any character except the newline character.

Example:

The pattern

....

will match any 4 characters in the reference string, except a newline character.

^

A caret (^) appearing at the beginning of a pattern requires that the reference string must start with the specified pattern (an escaped caret, or a caret appearing elsewhere in the pattern, is treated as a non-special character).

Example:

The pattern

^efghi

The pattern will match only those reference strings starting with efghi; thus, it will match either of the following:

efghi
efghijlk

but not:

abcefghi

$

A dollar sign ($) appearing at the end of a pattern requires that the pattern appear at the end of a reference string (an escaped dollar sign, or a dollar sign appearing elsewhere, is treated as a regular character).

Example:

The pattern

efghi$

Will match either of the following:

efghi abcdefghi

but not:

efghijkl

\<

Match something at the beginning of a word (the beginning of a line, or just before a letter, digit, or underline character, or just after a character which is not one of the foregoing).

Example:

The pattern

\<abc

matches the last abc in the reference string:

@hijabc#+abc

but not the first, since the first abc did not start on a word boundary.

\>

Match the following one-character regular expression at the end of a word, as defined above.

[string]

Match any single character within the brackets. The caret (^) has a special meaning if it is the first character in the series: the pattern will match any character other than one in the list.

Example:

The pattern

[^abc]

Will match any character except one of:

a
b
c

To match a right bracket (]) in the list, put it first, as in:

[]ab01]

A caret appearing anywhere but the in first position is treated as a regular character.

The minus (-) character is special within square brackets. It is used to define a range of ASCII characters to be matched. For example, the pattern:

[a-z]

matches any lower case letter. The minus can be made non-special by placing it first or last within the square brackets. The characters '$', '*' and '.' are not special within square brackets.

Example:

The pattern

[ab01]

matches a single occurrence of a character from the set:

a
b
0
1

Example:

The pattern

[^ab01]

will match any single character other than one from the set:

a
b
0
1

Example :

The pattern

[a0-9b]

matches one of the characters:

a
b

or a digit between 0 and 9, inclusive.

Example :

The pattern

[^a0-9b.$]

matches any single character which is not in the set:

a
b
.
$

or a digit between 0 and 9, inclusive.

*

Match zero or more occurrences of an immediately preceding regular expression.

Example:

The pattern

a*

matches zero or more occurrences of the character:

a

Example:

The pattern

[A-Z]*

matches zero or more occurrences of the upper case alphabet.

\{m\}

Match exactly m occurrences of a preceding regular expression, where m is a non-negative integer between 0 and 255 (inclusive).

Example:

The pattern

ab\{3\}

matches any substring in the reference string consisting of the character `a' followed by exactly three `b' characters.

\{m,\}

Match at least m occurrences of the preceding regular expression.

Example:

The pattern

ab\{3,\}

matches any substring in the reference string of the character `a' followed by at least three `b' characters.

\{m,n\}

Match between m and n occurrences of the preceding regular expression (where n is a non-negative integer between 0 and 255, and n>m).

Example:

The pattern

ab\{3,5\}

matches any substring in the reference string consisting of the character `a' followed by at least three but at most five `b' characters.

Tips for Using Regular Expressions

1)

When matching a substring it is not necessary to use the wildcard character to match the part of the reference string preceding and following the substring.

Example:

The pattern

abcd

will match any reference string containing this pattern. It is not necessary to use

.*abcd.*

as the pattern.

2)

In order to constrain a pattern to the entire reference pattern, use the construction:

^pattern$

3)

The '[]' operator provides an easy mechanism to obtain case insensitivity. For example, to match the word:

hello

regardless of case, use the pattern:

[Hh][Ee][Ll][Ll][Oo]

THE ARCHIE DATABASE

BUGS AND LIMITATIONS

1)

Only UNIX sites are included in the database.

2)

The user can not limit searches to specific sites.

3)

There is no graphical user interface.

4)

There is no way to abort the help facility completely.

LONG TERM PLANS

We welcome comments and suggestions; please send them to archie-l@archie.mcgill.ca.  

SEE ALSO

AUTHORS

Index

NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

Using the Interactive Interface

Using the Electronic Mail Interface

Communicating with the Database Administrators

THE INTERACTIVE INTERFACE

Commands

Variable Types

Boolean Variables

Numeric Variables

String Variables

THE ELECTRONIC MAIL INTERFACE

REGULAR EXPRESSIONS

Tips for Using Regular Expressions

THE ARCHIE DATABASE

BUGS AND LIMITATIONS

LONG TERM PLANS

SEE ALSO

AUTHORS