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.TH NEWSDB 5 "2 March 1992"
.BY "C News"
.SH NAME
newsdb \- USENET network news database: article tree, history, active, active.times
.SH DESCRIPTION
Each news article is stored in a separate file
with one or more links,
each a numeric name
in a directory under
.B \*a
corresponding to a newsgroup
the article is (cross-)posted to.
For example,
an article posted to
.B comp.unix.wizards
might be stored in
.BR \*a/comp/unix/wizards/4867 .
.PP
The file
.B \*c/active
defines the locally-valid news groups
and
contains one line per group.
Each line consists of four blank-separated fields:
newsgroup name,
highest local article number assigned,
lowest local article number in use (approximately),
and
a flag.
Both article-number fields are at least five digits wide.
(Some older news software may expect exactly five digits.)
The current flag values are
.B y
(a normal unmoderated group),
.B n
(like
.B y
but local postings disallowed),
.B m
(a normal moderated group),
.B x
(a locally-disabled group,
no articles will be filed here),
and
.B =
(followed by the real group
under which to file articles in this group;
articles are treated exactly as if their
.B Newsgroups:
header specified the real group instead of the original one;
highest and lowest fields are ignored).
.PP
The file
.B \*c/active.times
is an extension of the
.I active
file that records the arrival of new newsgroups by time and creator.
When a new newsgroup is created,
the group name,
time of group creation
(as seconds since January 1, 1970,
00:00, GMT),
and mail address of the creator
are appended as a single line.
The file must always be sorted in increasing order
of the creation-time field.
The news software only appends to the file,
which normally suffices to ensure this.
An initial
.I active.times
for already existing newsgroups,
with all times equal to the time of its creation
and all creators ``unknown'',
can be built using
.I act.to.times
(see
.IR newsmaint (8)).
.I Active.times
provides a quick
way for newsreaders to tell when new groups have arrived,
without weird heuristics and expensive schemes
like storing old lists of
newsgroups and comparing them to the
.I active
file.
.PP
The file
.B \*c/history
contains one line for each article received.
Each line consists of three tab-separated fields:
a
.IR Message-ID: ,
the arrival time as seconds since midnight,
Jan 1, 1970
and
the
.B Expires:
value
(a dash indicates there was none)
separated by a tilde,
and
the list of links to this article.
If an article has been expired or cancelled without being seen first,
the list of links and the tab before it are omitted.
There are also index files to permit rapid lookup by message-id,
typically called
.B \*c/history.dir
and
.BR \*c/history.pag .
.SH EXAMPLES
A trivial
.I active
file.
.Es
control 0000600006 600004 y
junk 0000000076 00074 y
comp.org.usrgroup 0000000006 00004 y
talk.bizarre 0000296123 292136 n
comp.sys.sun 0000050175 50173 m
list.sun-spots 0000000076 00076 =comp.sys.sun
comp.os.vms 0000000000 00000 x
.Ee
.PP
An trivial
.I history
file.
.Es
<3451@hcr.UUCP>	581905588~-	comp.text/1317 comp.sources.wanted/4200
<9383@alice.UUCP>	611934511~-
.Ee
.SH FILES
.nf
.BI \*a/ news/group/1234
.B \*c/active
.B \*c/active.times
.B \*c/history
.B \*c/history.dir
.B \*c/history.pag
.fi
.SH SEE ALSO
.IR dbz (1),
.IR nn (1),
.IR readnews (1),
.IR rn (1),
.IR dbz (3),
.IR getdate (3),
.IR getabsdate (3),
.IR news (5),
.IR newssys (5),
.IR expire (8),
.IR newshist (8),
.IR newsmaint (8),
.IR relaynews (8),
.IR newsinvaders (9.1)
.SH BUGS
A single portable extended
.I history
database,
containing more information about each article,
might be useful for some newsreaders
(notably
.I nn
and
.IR trn )
and would eliminate the expense of running
.I nnmaster
and most especially
.IR mthreads .
More importantly,
sites that support more than one such newsreader
would only need a single multi-megabyte database.
On the other hand,
.I gnus
or
.I gnews
gets the same effect
at run-time with no adjunct database,
at little expense
(or so their users claim).
.SH HISTORY
.I Active.times
invented
by Mark Moraes and Geoff Collyer
as part of the C News project.