EXPIREOVER (8)

NAME
     expireover - Expire entries from the news overview database

SYNOPSIS
     expireover [ -a ] [ -D overviewdir ] [ -f file ] [ -n ] [ -O overview.fmt
     ] [ -s ] [ -v ] [ -z ] [ file... ]

DESCRIPTION
     Expireover expires entries from the news overview database.  It  reads  a
     list     of    pathnames    (relative    to    the    spool    directory,
     <config$_PATH_SPOOL>), from the specified files or standard input if none
     are specified.  (A file name of ``-'' may be used to specify the standard
     input.)   It  then  removes  any  mention  of  those  articles  from  the
     appropriate overview database.

OPTIONS

     -z   If the ``-z'' flag is used, then the input is assumed to  be  sorted
          such that all entries for a newsgroup appear together so that it can
          be purged at once.  This flag can  be  useful  when  used  with  the
          sorted output of expire(8) 's ``-z'' flag.

     -s   If the ``-s'' flag is used, then  expireover  will  read  the  spool
          directory for all groups mentioned in the active(5)  file, and remove
          the overview entries of any articles  that  do  not  appear  in  the
          directory.

     -f   To specify an alternate file, use the ``-f'' flag; a name  of  ``-''
          is taken to mean the standard input.

     -a   The ``-a'' flag reads the  spool  directory  and  adds  any  missing
          overview  entries.   It will create files if necessary.  This can be
          used to initialize a database, or to sync  up  a  overview  database
          that  may  be  lacking  articles due to a crash.  Overchan should be
          running, to ensure that any incoming articles get  included.   Using
          this  flag  implies  the ``-s'' flag; the ``-f'' flag may be used to
          add only a subset of the newsgroups.

     -v   To see a list of the entries that would be added or deleted, use the
          ``-v'' flag.

     -n   To perform no real updates, use the ``-n'' flag.

     -D   The ``-D'' flag can be used  to  specify  where  the  databases  are
          stored.  The default directory is <config$_PATH_OVERVIEWDIR>.

     -O   The ``-O'' flag may be used to specify an alternate location for the
          overview.fmt(5) file; this is normally only useful for debugging.

HISTORY
     Written  by  Rob  Robertson  <rob@violet.berkeley.edu>  and   Rich   $alz
     <rsalz@uunet.uu.net>  (with  help from Dave Lawrence <tale@uunet.uu.net>)
     for InterNetNews.  This is revision 1.8, dated 1996/10/29.

SEE ALSO
     expire(8) , overview.fmt(5) .