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 direc-
     tory, /news), 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 news-
          groups.

     -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  data-
          bases   are   stored.    The   default   directory   is
          /news/over.view.

     -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).