Proposal for a standardized LIST COUNTS command
Julien ÉLIE
In case you have any comments or special need on that command, do not
hesitate to speak up. (It is already implemented in Highwinds products
-- e.g. Cyclone, Tornado, Typhoon, Twister when they support readers --
and will be implemented in INN 2.5.2.)
Expectations from news readers, how it can be used, implementation
on news servers, etc. are welcome.
Usage
Syntax
LIST COUNTS [wildmat]
Responses
215 List of newsgroups follows (multi-line)
Parameters
wildmat Groups of interest
Description
See Section 7.6.1 of [RFC3977] for general requirements of the LIST
command.
The counts list returns a list of valid newsgroups carried by the
news server along with associated information.
The information is returned as a multi-line data block following the
215 response code and contains one line per newsgroup. Each line of
this list MUST consist of five fields separated from each other by
one or more spaces (the usual pratice is a single space) in the
following order:
o The name of the newsgroup.
o The reported high water mark for the group.
o The reported low water mark for the group.
o The estimated number of articles in the group.
o The current status of the group on this server.
The reported high and low water marks, and the estimated number of
articles are as described in the GROUP command (see Section 6.1.1 of
[RFC3977]), but note that they are in the opposite order to the 211
response to that command. The current status of the group is as
described in the LIST ACTIVE command (see Section 7.6.3 of [RFC3977],
as well as Section 2.2 of this document).
The order of newsgroups in the list is not significant.
The same newsgroup SHOULD NOT appear twice in the output of this
command.
The counts list is newsgroup-based, and a wildmat MAY be
specified, in which case the response is limited to only the groups,
if any, whose names match the wildmat. If no wildmat is specified,
the server MUST include every newsgroup that the client is permitted
to select with the GROUP command (see Section 6.1.1 of [RFC3977]).
The counts list MAY be empty. If the server does not maintain the
information, a 503 response code MUST be returned. (However, note
that a news server that supports this command usually maintains the
information.)
The client MAY use LIST COUNTS in order to obtain an estimate of the
number of articles in every newsgroup the server carries, which
enables it to provide the end user with this information. Instead of
using LIST ACTIVE and separate GROUP commands to get the estimated
number of articles in newsgroups, the client may therefore use LIST
COUNTS.
Examples
Example of output with no argument:
[C] CAPABILITIES
[S] 101 Capability list:
[S] VERSION 2
[S] READER
[S] LIST ACTIVE COUNTS NEWSGROUPS
[S] .
[C] LIST COUNTS
[S] 215 List of newsgroups follows
[S] misc.test 3002322 3000234 1234 y
[S] comp.risks 442001 441099 742 m
[S] local.empty 7 8 0 Y
[S] .
Example of output with a wildmat:
[C] LIST COUNTS comp.*,misc.*
[S] 215 List of newsgroups follows
[S] misc.test 3002322 3000234 1234 y
[S] comp.risks 442001 441099 742 m
[S] .
Example of output on an implementation that includes leading zeroes:
[C] LIST COUNTS
[S] 215 List of newsgroups follows
[S] misc.test 0003002322 0003000234 1234 y
[S] comp.risks 0000442001 0000441099 742 m
[S] local.empty 0000000007 0000000008 0 Y
[S] .
The estimated number of articles usually does not start with leading
zeroes, but MAY have them.
ABNF syntax
list-arguments =/ "COUNTS" [WS wildmat]
list-content =/ list-counts-content
list-counts-content =
*(newsgroup-name 3(SPA article-number)
SPA newsgroup-status CRLF)
--
Julien ï¿œLIE
ￜ -- Il t'arrive une tuile ?
-- Oui, je ne peux pas payer mon ardoise. ￜ
Julien ÉLIE
> hesitate to speak up. (It is already implemented in Highwinds products
> -- e.g. Cyclone, Tornado, Typhoon, Twister when they support readers --
> and will be implemented in INN 2.5.2.)
And the next release of tin too.
By the way, I wrote that each line of the counts list is made of five
fields separated from each other by one or more spaces.
I only said spaces (and not whitespaces) because LIST ACTIVE also
uses only spaces.
Is there a reason for specifically not allowing a tab in LIST ACTIVE?
It could lead to better output, especially when article numbers contain
leading zeroes.
--
Julien ï¿œLIE
ￜ Si les chefs sont de force ￜgale, ils ont le droit de se jeter
des ballots ￜ la tￜte ; on dit alors qu'ils sont en ballottage. ￜ (Astￜrix)