3.8. The NEWNEWS command

3.8.1. NEWNEWS

   NEWNEWS newsgroups date time [GMT] [<distribution>]

A list of message-ids of articles posted or received to the specified newsgroup since "date" will be listed. The format of the listing will be one message-id per line, as though text were being sent. A single line consisting solely of one period followed by CR-LF will terminate the list.

Date and time are in the same format as the NEWGROUPS command.

A newsgroup name containing a "*" (an asterisk) may be specified to broaden the article search to some or all newsgroups. The asterisk will be extended to match any part of a newsgroup name (e.g., net.micro* will match net.micro.wombat, net.micro.apple, etc). Thus if only an asterisk is given as the newsgroup name, all newsgroups will be searched for new news.

(Please note that the asterisk "*" expansion is a general replacement; in particular, the specification of e.g., net.*.unix should be correctly expanded to embrace names such as net.wombat.unix and net.whocares.unix.)

Conversely, if no asterisk appears in a given newsgroup name, only the specified newsgroup will be searched for new articles. Newsgroup names must be chosen from those returned in the listing of available groups. Multiple newsgroup names (including a "*") may be specified in this command, separated by a comma. No comma shall appear after the last newsgroup in the list. [Implementors are cautioned to keep the 512 character command length limit in mind.]

The exclamation point ("!") may be used to negate a match. This can be used to selectively omit certain newsgroups from an otherwise larger list. For example, a newsgroups specification of "net.*,mod.*,!mod.map.*" would specify that all net.<anything> and all mod.<anything> EXCEPT mod.map.<anything> newsgroup names would be matched. If used, the exclamation point must appear as the first character of the given newsgroup name or pattern.

The optional parameter "distributions" is a list of distribution groups, enclosed in angle brackets. If specified, the distribution portion of an article's newsgroup (e.g, 'net' in 'net.wombat') will be examined for a match with the distribution categories listed, and only those articles which have at least one newsgroup belonging to the list of distributions will be listed. If more than one distribution group is to be supplied, they must be separated by commas within the angle brackets.

The use of the IHAVE, NEWNEWS, and NEWGROUPS commands to distribute news is discussed in an earlier part of this document.

Please note that an empty list (i.e., the text body returned by this command consists only of the terminating period) is a possible valid response, and indicates that there is currently no new news.

3.8.2. Responses

   230 list of new articles by message-id follows