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Grex Internet Item 73: Search for usenet group?
Entered by raven on Mon Oct 17 03:57:41 UTC 1994:

        What command do I use under TRN to search for a certin type of usenet
group?  For example I'm searching for a group with information on handmade
paper and printmaking.

15 responses total.

#1 of 15 by srw on Mon Oct 17 05:13:39 1994:

If you know any part of the name, you can use "l".
l foo will list all the groups with foo in theur name. 
It makes 2 separate scans, 1 for unsubcribed groups in your .newsrc,
and 1 for such groups that aren't even in your .newsrc.

#2 of 15 by kentn on Mon Oct 17 05:35:55 1994:

What if what you are looking for is not in your .newsrc (subscribed
or unsubscribed)?

#3 of 15 by rcurl on Mon Oct 17 06:22:24 1994:

I got lists of all newsgroups and alt-newsgroups from news.announce.newusers,
but I haven't seen a reposting of them there for a while (in fact, I
haven't seen any news at all, for a while - things went down after the
crash and raid: are they back up?).

#4 of 15 by hawkeye on Mon Oct 17 18:39:57 1994:

Do this:  Make a backup of your .newsrc file.  Then delete it.  When you
next run "rn", you *should* get a *new* .newsrc created that has *all*
the groups in it.  YOu can then go make a copy of that and replace
your previous .newsrc file.

#5 of 15 by kentn on Tue Oct 18 03:21:16 1994:

Oh gawwwd...that's exactly what I *don't* want...

#6 of 15 by hawkeye on Tue Oct 18 16:45:53 1994:

Why not?  It would be very easy to "grep" from that listing to find what
you want...

#7 of 15 by rcurl on Tue Oct 18 20:53:30 1994:

My .newsrc has only the newsgroups I've joined and, as far as I know, never
had any others. Does grex now index the .newsrc with all ngs?

#8 of 15 by kentn on Tue Oct 18 21:47:42 1994:

hawkeye, I can do without an 80K .newsrc, thank you very much.  I
only put the newsgroups I want to read in my .newsrc.

#9 of 15 by robh on Tue Oct 18 23:04:30 1994:

Another trick, folks - try "a foo", where foo is a string
containing, well, something about the groups you're looking
for.  This command goes through all available newsgroups
containing that string, and asks if you want to subscribe.
This is the one I usually use.

#10 of 15 by raven on Wed Oct 19 01:39:25 1994:

        The l command worked fine in TRN.  Only problem is I didn't find a
newsgroup relating to handmade paper :-(.  Thanks for the help though :-).

#11 of 15 by rcurl on Wed Oct 19 06:12:30 1994:

rec.crafts.misc         Handiwork arts not covered elsewhere.
There is also rec.crafts.textiles
(I pulled this from my copy of Newsgroups-II, which I think is available
(along with I, and Alt-Newsgroups I and II), in news.lists)

#12 of 15 by hawkeye on Thu Oct 20 12:50:28 1994:

RE #8.  No, my point is that you get an 80K .newsrc file *once* so you
can scan it for all the groups you might be interested in.  Then you
can replace it with your *old*, smaller .newsrc file.

#13 of 15 by kentn on Thu Oct 20 15:52:01 1994:

Then my point would be, I do this often enough that I don't want to
wait for trn to generate that 80K (actually it's closer to 120K now)
file every time I want to scan it for groups.  Where's the list of
active newsgroups?

#14 of 15 by robh on Fri Oct 21 02:03:14 1994:

Y'know, I asked that over in Info a few months ago.  Never did
get a response.  You wouldn't believe how many help-seekers
ask me that.  (Then again, maybe you would.  >8)

#15 of 15 by rcurl on Fri Oct 21 04:44:39 1994:

I'm told its all in news.lists    I'm going to g that, and check.

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