OKAMI NEWSREADER MANUAL PAGES NAME oexpire: Message deletion program SYNOPSIS oexpire.ttp { options } { newsgroups } DESCRIPTION oexpire expires message on all named `newsgroup's. If no newsgroups are named, expires messages on all newsgroup named in the onews.def file. oexpire reads its configuration file (named in o.inf, oexpire.inf by default) to get the expiration criteria for the newsgroups to be expired. It then loads the newsgroup's index file and internally marks all messages that are to be deleted, either because their "killed" flag is set or because they match the newsgroup's expiration criteria. oexpire then deletes all marked messages, either by removing the message file (SMF database) or by deleting the message from the DBF database. It then recreates a new index file that consists only of those entries that were left undeleted and expires the thread index file (.tix). DBF Reorganization In the DBF database, a single file contains all the messages of the newsgroup. When a message is deleted, it is not removed from the file, but its space is marked as unused and may be re-used by successive imports. Only when the message at the end of the file is deleted, the file shrinks. Since normally expiration takes place on a regular basis, there is no danger for the database file to get fragmented and grow to infinity. Even if many messages are imported and deleted every day, the size of the database file should remain constant once it has reached a certain size since adjacent unused entries are joined. However, it is possible to reorganize the database file, eliminating all unused entries. Reorganization takes a good amount of time and requires at least the size of the database file to be available on the disk. For that reason, it is not recommended to reorganize the database after every expiration. The default of oexpire is to reorganize the database if more than 100 entries get unused. This can be changed with the -R option, which also allows for the reorganization to be turned off completely. OPTIONS -W Prints a message and waits one second before beginning expiration. If within that time the ESC key was pressed, terminates without further action. -I Uses the message file date for expiration. The default is to use the import date. -r Deletes all messages that have the "read" flag set. Use this if you are in extreme need of disk space. -K Deletes the newsgroup completely, removing all message, data- base and index files and empty directories and removing the newsgroup from the onews.def and news.def files -e Normally, oexpire deletes newsgroups that are empty after expiration. With -e, those empty newsgroups will be kept. -R nitems Reorganizes the DBF database if more than `nitems' entries are left unused. See "DBF reorganization" above. Special values for `nitems' are: 0 reorganizes always -1 reorganizes never `nitems' can be given in one of the following formats: - a number, then reorg takes place when at least that number of entries is unused - a number followed by a percent sign, then reorg takes place when at least that percentage of the DBF size is unused - a number followed by a `k' or 'K', then reorg takes place when that number of kilobytes are unused The default value for `nitems' is 80%. -d n Sets the day limit for the expiration of read messages to `n' days, overriding the setting in oexpire.inf. -u n Sets the day limit for the expiration of unread messages to `n' days, overriding the setting in oexpire.inf. -s n Sets the size limit for expiration to `n' bytes, overriding the setting in oexpire.inf. -m n Sets the number limit for expiration to `n' messages per newsgroup, overriding the setting in oexpire.inf. -k Ignores the expiration criteria and removes only messages that have the "killed" flag already set. -f Removes all messages that are in the index but the corresponding message file resp. DBF entry is missing. WARNING: For SMF, this stakes lots of disk access and thus is very slow. -i Removes all messages that are in the DBF database but not in the index file. This works for DBF databases only. Killing is done "silently" here, i.e. oexpire might print "no work" although messages did get removed from the DBF. In its output oexpire only counts those messages that were removed from the index. -M Does not expire mail groups. -T Does not expire threads. Use this only if you do not create threads at all or you will never get the deleted entries out of your thread inedx files. -Y net Expires only newsgroups from networks specified in `net': u Usenet m Mausnet The default is to expire all newsgroups with no regard to their network. -P Prints expiration criteria only. Does not expire anything. Pays no attention to the options -d,u,s,m. -h waits for key press after program termination -L n sets log level to n (-1 means no logging) -v prints version number only -F file uses `file' as o.inf configuration file -? Prints usage summary only. ENVIRONMENT O_INF name of default o.inf file FILES o.inf oexpire.inf onews.def SEE ALSO - The documentation of the oexpire.inf file, contained as a comment block in the file itself. - The manual page for the DBF database. BUGS No known bugs (anymore). HISTORY 13-11-93 created 21-03-94 changed -R default from 100 to 80% 20-05-94 added option -i 17-06-94 added option -e 13-10-94 -f can be used for DBF too DATE June 17 1994 AUTHOR Wolfram R”sler