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, /var/spool/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 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 /var/spool/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).

                                                                                    EXPIREOVER(8)