ARCHIE

Section: User Commands (1)
Updated: 20 November 1991
Index Return to Main Contents

NAME

archie - query the Archie anonymous FTP databases using Prospero

SYNOPSIS

archie [ -cers ] [ -l ] [ -t ] [ -m# ] [ -N# ] [ -h host ] [ -L ] string

DESCRIPTION

archie queries an archie anonymous FTP database looking for the specified string using the Prospero protocol. This client is based on Prospero version Beta.4.2 and is provided to encourage non-interactive use of the Archie servers (and subsequently better performance on both sides). The general method of use is of the form

: % archie string

This will go to the archie server and ask it to look for all known systems that have a file named `string' in their FTP area. archie will wait, and print out any matches. For example,

: % archie emacs

will find all anonymous FTP sites in the archie database that have files named emacs somewhere in their FTP area. (This particular query would probably return a lot of directories.) If you want a list of every filename that contains emacs anywhere in it, you'd use

: % archie -c emacs

Regular expressions, such as

: % archie -r '[xX][lL]isp'

may also be used for searches. (See the manual of a reasonably good editor, like GNU Emacs or vi, for more information on using regular expressions.)

OPTIONS

The options currently available to this archie client are:

-c: Search substrings paying attention to upper & lower case.
-e: Exact string match. (This is the default.)
-r: Search using a regular expression.
-s: Search substrings ignoring the case of the letters.
-l: Output results in a form suitable for parsing by programs.
-t: Sort the results inverted by date.
-m#: Specifies the maximum number of hits (matches) to return (default of 95).
-N#: Sets the niceness of a query; by default, it's set to 0. Without an argument, -N defaults to 35765. If you use -N with an argument between 0 and 35765, it'll adjust itself accordingly. (Note: VMS users will have to put quotes around this argument, and -L, like ``-N45''; VMS will otherwise convert it to lowercase.)
-h host: Tells the client to query the Archie server named host.
-L: Lists the Archie servers known to the program when it was compiled.
-H configfile: (DOS ONLY) Tells Archie where to find the config.tel file, if not in the current directory, and not set in the DOS environment variable CONFIGTEL.

Quick Hits

You'll often find yourself making fast and furious queries for multiple things that all look similar (e.g. `telnet', `net', etc). If you get into the habit of using the -c option when performing these kinds of searches, they'll often prove more fruitful than if you relied upon the default of -e.

Notes

The three search-modifying arguments (-c, -r, and -s) are all mutually exclusive; only the last one counts. If you specify -e with any of -c, -r, or -s, the server will first check for an exact match, then fall back to the case-sensitive, case-insensitive, or regular expression search. This is so if there are matches that are particularly obvious, it will take a minimal amount of time to satisfy your request. If you list a single `-' by itself, any further arguments will be taken as part of the search string. This is intended to enable searching for strings that begin with a `-'; for example:

: % archie -s - -old

will search for all filenames that contain the string `-old' in them.

RESPONSE

Archie servers are set up to respond to a number of requests in a queued fashion. That is, smaller requests get served much more quickly than do large requests. As a result, the more often you query the Archie server, or the larger your requests, the longer the queue will become, resulting in a longer waiting period for everyone's requests. Please be frugal when possible, for your benefit as well as for the other users.

QUERY PRIORITY

Please use the -N option whenever you don't demand immediacy, or when you're requesting things that could generate large responses. Even when using the nice option, you should still try to avoid big jobs during busy periods. Here is a list of what we consider to be nice values that accurately reflect the priority of a job to the server.

Normal: 0
Nice: 500
Nicer: 1000
Very Nice: 5000
Extremely Nice: 10000
Nicest: 32765

The last priority, Nicest, would be used when a job should wait until the queue is essentially empty before running. You should pick one of these values to use, possibly modifying it slightly depending on where you think your priority should land. For example, 32760 would mean wait until the queue is empty, but jump ahead of other jobs that have selected Nicest. There are certain types of things that we suggest using Nicest for, irregardless. In particular, any searches for which you would have a hard time justifying the use of anything but extra resources. (We all know what those searches would be for.)

AUTHORS

The archie service was conceived and implemented by Alan Emtage (bajan@cs.mcgill.ca), Peter Deutsch (peterd@cs.mcgill.ca), and Bill Heelan (wheelan@cs.mcgill.ca). The entire Internet is in their debt. The Prospero system was created by Clifford Neuman (bcn@isi.edu); write to info-prospero@isi.edu for more information on the protocol and its use. This stripped client was put together by Brendan Kehoe (brendan@cs.widener.edu), with modifications by Clifford Neuman and George Ferguson (ferguson@cs.rochester.edu).

BUGS

There are none; only a few unexpected features.

This document was created by man2html, using the manual pages.
Time: 06:00:43 GMT, March 28, 2025