Net::NNTP - phpMan

Net::NNTP(3pm) Perl Programmers Reference Guide Net::NNTP(3pm)

NAME
Net::NNTP - NNTP Client class

SYNOPSIS
use Net::NNTP;

$nntp = Net::NNTP->new("some.host.name");
$nntp->quit;

DESCRIPTION
"Net::NNTP" is a class implementing a simple NNTP client in Perl as described in
RFC977. "Net::NNTP" inherits its communication methods from "Net::Cmd"

CONSTRUCTOR
new ( [ HOST ] [, OPTIONS ])
This is the constructor for a new Net::NNTP object. "HOST" is the name of the
remote host to which a NNTP connection is required. If not given then it may be
passed as the "Host" option described below. If no host is passed then two
environment variables are checked, first "NNTPSERVER" then "NEWSHOST", then
"Net::Config" is checked, and if a host is not found then "news" is used.

"OPTIONS" are passed in a hash like fashion, using key and value pairs. Possi-
ble options are:

Host - NNTP host to connect to. It may be a single scalar, as defined for the
"PeerAddr" option in IO::Socket::INET, or a reference to an array with hosts to
try in turn. The "host" method will return the value which was used to connect
to the host.

Timeout - Maximum time, in seconds, to wait for a response from the NNTP
server, a value of zero will cause all IO operations to block. (default: 120)

Debug - Enable the printing of debugging information to STDERR

Reader - If the remote server is INN then initially the connection will be to
nnrpd, by default "Net::NNTP" will issue a "MODE READER" command so that the
remote server becomes innd. If the "Reader" option is given with a value of
zero, then this command will not be sent and the connection will be left talk-
ing to nnrpd.

METHODS
Unless otherwise stated all methods return either a true or false value, with true
meaning that the operation was a success. When a method states that it returns a
value, failure will be returned as undef or an empty list.

article ( [ MSGID│MSGNUM ], [FH] )
Retrieve the header, a blank line, then the body (text) of the specified arti-
cle.

If "FH" is specified then it is expected to be a valid filehandle and the
result will be printed to it, on success a true value will be returned. If "FH"
is not specified then the return value, on success, will be a reference to an
array containg the article requested, each entry in the array will contain one
line of the article.

If no arguments are passed then the current article in the currently selected
newsgroup is fetched.

"MSGNUM" is a numeric id of an article in the current newsgroup, and will
change the current article pointer. "MSGID" is the message id of an article as
shown in that article’s header. It is anticipated that the client will obtain
the "MSGID" from a list provided by the "newnews" command, from references
contained within another article, or from the message-id provided in the
response to some other commands.

If there is an error then "undef" will be returned.

body ( [ MSGID│MSGNUM ], [FH] )
Like "article" but only fetches the body of the article.

head ( [ MSGID│MSGNUM ], [FH] )
Like "article" but only fetches the headers for the article.

articlefh ( [ MSGID│MSGNUM ] )
bodyfh ( [ MSGID│MSGNUM ] )
headfh ( [ MSGID│MSGNUM ] )
These are similar to article(), body() and head(), but rather than returning
the requested data directly, they return a tied filehandle from which to read
the article.

nntpstat ( [ MSGID│MSGNUM ] )
The "nntpstat" command is similar to the "article" command except that no text
is returned. When selecting by message number within a group, the "nntpstat"
command serves to set the "current article pointer" without sending text.

Using the "nntpstat" command to select by message-id is valid but of question-
able value, since a selection by message-id does not alter the "current article
pointer".

Returns the message-id of the "current article".

group ( [ GROUP ] )
Set and/or get the current group. If "GROUP" is not given then information is
returned on the current group.

In a scalar context it returns the group name.

In an array context the return value is a list containing, the number of arti-
cles in the group, the number of the first article, the number of the last
article and the group name.

ihave ( MSGID [, MESSAGE ])
The "ihave" command informs the server that the client has an article whose id
is "MSGID". If the server desires a copy of that article, and "MESSAGE" has
been given the it will be sent.

Returns true if the server desires the article and "MESSAGE" was successfully
sent,if specified.

If "MESSAGE" is not specified then the message must be sent using the
"datasend" and "dataend" methods from Net::Cmd

"MESSAGE" can be either an array of lines or a reference to an array.

last ()
Set the "current article pointer" to the previous article in the current news-
group.

Returns the message-id of the article.

date ()
Returns the date on the remote server. This date will be in a UNIX time format
(seconds since 1970)

postok ()
"postok" will return true if the servers initial response indicated that it
will allow posting.

authinfo ( USER, PASS )
Authenticates to the server (using AUTHINFO USER / AUTHINFO PASS) using the
supplied username and password. Please note that the password is sent in clear
text to the server. This command should not be used with valuable passwords
unless the connection to the server is somehow protected.

list ()
Obtain information about all the active newsgroups. The results is a reference
to a hash where the key is a group name and each value is a reference to an
array. The elements in this array are:- the last article number in the group,
the first article number in the group and any information flags about the
group.

newgroups ( SINCE [, DISTRIBUTIONS ])
"SINCE" is a time value and "DISTRIBUTIONS" is either a distribution pattern or
a reference to a list of distribution patterns. The result is the same as
"list", but the groups return will be limited to those created after "SINCE"
and, if specified, in one of the distribution areas in "DISTRIBUTIONS".

newnews ( SINCE [, GROUPS [, DISTRIBUTIONS ]])
"SINCE" is a time value. "GROUPS" is either a group pattern or a reference to a
list of group patterns. "DISTRIBUTIONS" is either a distribution pattern or a
reference to a list of distribution patterns.

Returns a reference to a list which contains the message-ids of all news posted
after "SINCE", that are in a groups which matched "GROUPS" and a distribution
which matches "DISTRIBUTIONS".

next ()
Set the "current article pointer" to the next article in the current newsgroup.

Returns the message-id of the article.

post ( [ MESSAGE ] )
Post a new article to the news server. If "MESSAGE" is specified and posting is
allowed then the message will be sent.

If "MESSAGE" is not specified then the message must be sent using the
"datasend" and "dataend" methods from Net::Cmd

"MESSAGE" can be either an array of lines or a reference to an array.

The message, either sent via "datasend" or as the "MESSAGE" parameter, must be
in the format as described by RFC822 and must contain From:, Newsgroups: and
Subject: headers.

postfh ()
Post a new article to the news server using a tied filehandle. If posting is
allowed, this method will return a tied filehandle that you can print() the
contents of the article to be posted. You must explicitly close() the filehan-
dle when you are finished posting the article, and the return value from the
close() call will indicate whether the message was successfully posted.

slave ()
Tell the remote server that I am not a user client, but probably another news
server.

quit ()
Quit the remote server and close the socket connection.

Extension methods

These methods use commands that are not part of the RFC977 documentation. Some
servers may not support all of them.

newsgroups ( [ PATTERN ] )
Returns a reference to a hash where the keys are all the group names which
match "PATTERN", or all of the groups if no pattern is specified, and each
value contains the description text for the group.

distributions ()
Returns a reference to a hash where the keys are all the possible distribution
names and the values are the distribution descriptions.

subscriptions ()
Returns a reference to a list which contains a list of groups which are recom-
mended for a new user to subscribe to.

overview_fmt ()
Returns a reference to an array which contain the names of the fields returned
by "xover".

active_times ()
Returns a reference to a hash where the keys are the group names and each value
is a reference to an array containing the time the groups was created and an
identifier, possibly an Email address, of the creator.

active ( [ PATTERN ] )
Similar to "list" but only active groups that match the pattern are returned.
"PATTERN" can be a group pattern.

xgtitle ( PATTERN )
Returns a reference to a hash where the keys are all the group names which
match "PATTERN" and each value is the description text for the group.

xhdr ( HEADER, MESSAGE-SPEC )
Obtain the header field "HEADER" for all the messages specified.

The return value will be a reference to a hash where the keys are the message
numbers and each value contains the text of the requested header for that mes-
sage.

xover ( MESSAGE-SPEC )
The return value will be a reference to a hash where the keys are the message
numbers and each value contains a reference to an array which contains the
overview fields for that message.

The names of the fields can be obtained by calling "overview_fmt".

xpath ( MESSAGE-ID )
Returns the path name to the file on the server which contains the specified
message.

xpat ( HEADER, PATTERN, MESSAGE-SPEC)
The result is the same as "xhdr" except the is will be restricted to headers
where the text of the header matches "PATTERN"

xrover
The XROVER command returns reference information for the article(s) specified.

Returns a reference to a HASH where the keys are the message numbers and the
values are the References: lines from the articles

listgroup ( [ GROUP ] )
Returns a reference to a list of all the active messages in "GROUP", or the
current group if "GROUP" is not specified.

reader
Tell the server that you are a reader and not another server.

This is required by some servers. For example if you are connecting to an INN
server and you have transfer permission your connection will be connected to
the transfer daemon, not the NNTP daemon. Issuing this command will cause the
transfer daemon to hand over control to the NNTP daemon.

Some servers do not understand this command, but issuing it and ignoring the
response is harmless.

UNSUPPORTED
The following NNTP command are unsupported by the package, and there are no plans
to do so.

AUTHINFO GENERIC
XTHREAD
XSEARCH
XINDEX

DEFINITIONS
MESSAGE-SPEC
"MESSAGE-SPEC" is either a single message-id, a single message number, or a
reference to a list of two message numbers.

If "MESSAGE-SPEC" is a reference to a list of two message numbers and the sec-
ond number in a range is less than or equal to the first then the range repre-
sents all messages in the group after the first message number.

NOTE For compatibility reasons only with earlier versions of Net::NNTP a mes-
sage spec can be passed as a list of two numbers, this is deprecated and a ref-
erence to the list should now be passed

PATTERN
The "NNTP" protocol uses the "WILDMAT" format for patterns. The WILDMAT format
was first developed by Rich Salz based on the format used in the UNIX "find"
command to articulate file names. It was developed to provide a uniform mecha-
nism for matching patterns in the same manner that the UNIX shell matches file-
names.

Patterns are implicitly anchored at the beginning and end of each string when
testing for a match.

There are five pattern matching operations other than a strict one-to-one match
between the pattern and the source to be checked for a match.

The first is an asterisk "*" to match any sequence of zero or more characters.

The second is a question mark "?" to match any single character. The third
specifies a specific set of characters.

The set is specified as a list of characters, or as a range of characters where
the beginning and end of the range are separated by a minus (or dash) charac-
ter, or as any combination of lists and ranges. The dash can also be included
in the set as a character it if is the beginning or end of the set. This set is
enclosed in square brackets. The close square bracket "]" may be used in a set
if it is the first character in the set.

The fourth operation is the same as the logical not of the third operation and
is specified the same way as the third with the addition of a caret character
"^" at the beginning of the test string just inside the open square bracket.

The final operation uses the backslash character to invalidate the special
meaning of an open square bracket "[", the asterisk, backslash or the question
mark. Two backslashes in sequence will result in the evaluation of the back-
slash as a character with no special meaning.

Examples
"[^]-]"
matches any single character other than a close square bracket or a minus
sign/dash.

*bdc
matches any string that ends with the string "bdc" including the string
"bdc" (without quotes).

"[0-9a-zA-Z]"
matches any single printable alphanumeric ASCII character.

"a??d"
matches any four character string which begins with a and ends with d.