TERENA

Guide to Network Resource Tools: Searching tools

Details of using Archie

Using Telnet
Using Electronic Mail
Using a Local Client

Using Telnet

You can use Telnet to connect to an archie server interactively (see the list of servers in the document Archie Servers). At the login: prompt enter archie. The login procedure leaves the user at the prompt archie> indicating that the server is ready for user requests.

Archie servers respond to the commands listed below; the way they respond can be defined using the special command set, which changes the values of a set of variables described at the end of this section.

The following commands are available:

exit, quit, bye: exits archie.
help <command-name>: invokes the on-line help. If a command-name is given, the help request is restricted to that command. Pressing the RETURN key exits from the on-line help.
list <pattern>: provides a list of the FTP servers in the database and the time at which they were last updated. The result is a list of site names, with the site IP address and date of the last update in the database. The optional parameter limits the list to sites matching pattern: the command list with no pattern will list all sites in the database (more than 1000 sites!). E.g. list \.de$ will list all German sites
site(*) site-name: lists the directories and subdirectories held in the database from a particular site-name. The result may be very long.
whatis string: searches the database of software package descriptions for string. The search is case-insensitive.
prog string | pattern
find(+) string | pattern: searches the database for string or pattern. Searches may be performed in a number of different ways specified in the variable search, which also determines whether the parameter is treated as a string or as a pattern. The search produces a list of FTP site addresses which contain filenames matching the pattern or containing the string, the size of the file, its last modification date and its directory path. The number of matches is limited by the maxhits variable. The list can be sorted in different ways, depending on the value of the sortby variable. By default, the variables search, maxhits and sortby are set to, respectively, exact match search on string, 1000 hits and unsorted resulting list. A search can be aborted by typing the keyboard interrupt character; the list produced at that point will be displayed.
mail <email> <,email2...>: places the result of the last command in a mail message and dispatches specified e-mail address(es). If no mail address is specified as a parameter, the result is sent to the address specified in the variable mailto.
show <variable>: displays the value of the given variable. If issued with no argument, it displays all variables. The archie variables are shown below with the details of the set command.
set variable value: changes the value of the specified archie variable. The variables specify how other archie commands should operate.

Variables and values are:

compress(+) compress-method

specifies the compression method (none or compress) to be used before mailing a result with the mail command. The default is none.

encode(+) encode-method

specifies the encoding method (none or uuencode) to be used before mailing a result with the mail command. This variable is ignored if compress is not set. The default is none.

mailto email <,email2 ...>

specifies the e-mail address(es) to be used when the mail command is issued with no arguments.

maxhits number

specifies the maximum number of matches prog will generate (within the range 0 to 1000). The default value is 1000.

search search-value

determines the kind of search performed on the database by the command: prog string | pattern. search-values are:

sub

a partial and case insensitive search is performed with string on the database, e.g.:
"is" will match "islington" and "this" and "poison"

subcase

as above but the search is case sensitive, e.g.
"TeX" will match "LaTeX" but not "Latex"

exact

the parameter of prog (string) must EXACTLY match the string in the database (including case). The fastest search method of all, and the default.

regex

pattern is used as a Unix regular expression to match filenames during the database search.

sortby sort-value

describes how to sort the result of prog. sort-values are:

hostname: on the FTP site address in lexical order.
time: by the modification date, most recent first.
size: by the size of the files or directories in the list, largest first.
filename: on file or directory name in lexical order.
none: unsorted (default)
Reverse sorts can be carried out by prepending r to the sortby value given (e.g. rhostname instead of hostname).

term terminal-type <number-of-rows <number-of-columns>>

tells the archie server what type of terminal you are using, and optionally its size in rows and columns, e.g.

set term xterm 24 100

Back to main Archie entry.

Using electronic mail

The domain addresses of the Archie-Email servers are listed in the document Archie Servers (e.g. archie@archie.doc.ic.ac.uk).

The electronic mail interface to an archie server recognizes a subset of the commands described in Using Telnet. These are described below. An empty message, or a message containing no valid requests, is treated as a help request.

Archie commands are sent in the body part of the mail message, but the Subject: line is processed as if it were part of the main body. Command lines begin in the first column; all lines that do not match a valid command are ignored.

help: sends you the help file. The help command is exclusive, so other commands in the same message are ignored.
path return-address
set mailto(+) return-address: specifies a return e-mail address different from that which is extracted from the message header. If you do not receive a reply from the archie server within several hours, you might need to add a path command to your message request.
list pattern <pattern2 ...>: requests a list of the sites in the database that match pattern, with the time at which they were last updated. The result is a list with site names, site IP addresses and date of each site's last update in the database.
site(*) site-name: lists the directories and subdirectories of site-name in the database.
whatis string <string2 ...>: searches the descriptions of software packages for each string. The search is case insensitive.
prog pattern <pattern2 ...>
find(+) pattern <pattern2>: uses pattern as a Unix regular expression to be matched when searching the database. If multiple patterns are placed on one line, the results will be mailed back in one message. If several lines are sent, each containing a prog command, then multiple messages will be returned, one for each prog line. Results are sorted by FTP site address in lexical order. If pattern contains spaces, it must be quoted with single (') or double (") quotes. The search is case insensitive.
compress(*): causes the result of the current request to be compressed and uuencoded. When you receive the reply, you should run it through uudecode, to produce a .Z file. You can then run uncompress on the .Z file and get the result of your request.
set compress(+) compress-method: specifies the compression method (none or compress) to be used before mailing the result of the current request. The default is none.
set encode(+) encode-method: specifies the encoding method (none or uuencode) to be used before mailing the result of the current request. This variable is ignored if compress is not set. The default is none.
Note: set compress compress and set encode uuencode would produce the same result as the former compress command.
quit: nothing past this point is interpreted. Useful if a signature is automatically appended to the end of your mail messages.

Description of pattern

A pattern is a specification of a character string, and may include characters which take a special meaning. The special meaning will be lost if "\" is put before the character. The special characters are:

.

(period) this is the wildcard character that replaces any single character, e.g. "...." will match any 4-character string.

^

(caret) if "^" appears at the beginning of the pattern, then only strings which start with the substring following the "^" will match the pattern. If the substring occurs anywhere else in the string it does not match the pattern, e.g.

"^efghi" will match "efghi" or "efghijlk" but not "abcefghi"

$

(dollar) if "$" appears at the end of the pattern, then the searched string must end with the substring preceding the "$". If the substring occurs anywhere else in the searched string, it is not considered to match, e.g.

"efghi$" will match "efghi" or "abcdefghi" but not "efghijkl"

Back to main Archie entry.

Using a local client

A graphical interface (GUI), enables you to access the archie functions by pressing mouse buttons in order to select menu options.

archie clients written for use without a graphical user interface require you to type in the command archie, followed by one or more parameters. If you omit the parameters you are given a list of the possible parameters with a short description of each one. A description of the parameters is given below, where angle brackets (<>) indicate an optional parameter and a vertical bar (|) indicates a choice of parameters.

archie <-parameters> string | pattern

where the optional parameters are:

o: specifies an output file name to store the results (not available with all clients).
l: lists the result one match per line. This form is suitable for parsing by programs.
t: sorts the result by date.
m#: specifies maximum number of matches to return (# within the range 0 to 1000). The default value is 95.
h archie-server: specifies which archie server should be used; if this parameter is not given, then the query will be sent to the default archie server, if one is defined.
L: lists known servers and current default server.

The following group of optional parameters determines the kind of search performed on the database. They are mutually exclusive.

s: a match occurs if the file/directory name contains string. The search is case insensitive.
c: as above, but the search is case sensitive.
e: string must EXACTLY match (including case) the file/directory name in the database. This is the DEFAULT search method.
r: searches the database using pattern. It contains special characters which must be interpreted before performing the search.

There may be slight differences in the options available with different clients on different platforms.

The result is a list of FTP site addresses which contain files or directories matching the argument, together with the size of the file, its last modification date and its directory. By default, the list is sorted by host address.

Back to main Archie entry.

gnrt@terena.nl June 1997