> David, its Telnet address is 132.206.2.3, answer to 'login:' 'archie'with CR
> and after getting 'archie>' prompt type 'help'. It will explane you how to
> go further. It works nice but sometimes one has to wait rather long for the
> search to finish, and there seem to be no way to use it in the batch mode,
> only interactive.
> Good luck!
> In Archie's "Help topic? email" it says you can do 'batch' requests,
though with limitations. The relevant Archie text is appended.
Actually, Archie now recommends NightTime logins for
Quick(er) Interactive Response --- very popular these days, and
"Hurray for McGill" 8-))
Tom
------------ text from archie ----------------
Help topic? email
For those people who do not have direct Internet access or those who
would prefer 'batching' of their requests, archie provides an email
interface handling a limited subset of the interactive archie commands.
The address of the interface is
archie at cs.mcgill.ca
The help message for the interface follows:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The ARCHIE Mail Server
HELP for the archie mail server, as of 18 December, 1990 (modified from the
KISS help file)
Requests to this server should be addressed to archie at cs.mcgill.ca
To contact us humans, mail to archie-l at cs.mcgill.ca
For your information anonymous FTP may be performed through the mail by the
ftp-mail server. Send a message with the word 'help' in it to:
bitftp at pucc.princeton.edu
for an explanation on how to use it.
NOTE: The Subject: line is processed as if it were part of the main message
body. No special keywords are required.
Note that the "help" command is exclusive. All other commands in the same
message are ignored.
Command lines begin in the first column. All lines that do not match a valid
commands are ignored.
The server recognizes six commands. If a message not containing any valid
requests or an empty message is received, it will be considered to be a
'help' request.
path <path> This lets the requestor override the address that would
normally be extracted from the header. If you do not
hear from the archive server within oh, about 2 days, you
might consider adding a "path" command to your request. The
path describes how to mail a message from cs.mcgill.ca to your
address. cs.mcgill.ca is fully connected to the Internet.
help Will send you this message.
prog <reg expr1> [<reg exp2> ...]
A search of the "archie" database is performed with each
<reg exp> (a regular expression as defined by ed(1)) in
turn, and any matches found are returned to the requestor.
Note that multiple <reg exp> may be placed on one line, in
which case the results will be mailed back to you in one
message. If you have multiple "prog" lines, then multiple
messages will be returned, one for each line [This doesn't
work as expected at the moment... stay tuned].
Any regular expression containing spaces must be quoted with
single (') or double (") quotes. ALL OTHER ed(1) rules must
be followed.
NOTE: The searches are CASE SENSITIVE. The ability to change
this will hopefully be added soon.
site <site name> | <site IP address>
A listing of the given <site name> will be returned. The
fully qualified domain name or IP address may be used.
compress ALL of your files in the current mail message will be
"compressed" and "uuencoded". When you receive the reply,
remove everything before the "begin" line and run it through
"uudecode". This will produce a .Z file. You can then run
"uncompress" on this file and get the results of your
request.
quit Nothing past this point is interpreted. This is provided so
that the occasional lost soul whose signature contains a line
that looks like a command can still use the server without
getting a bogus response.
----- end ----
