NAME

     nncheck - check for unread articles

SYNOPSIS

     nncheck [ -Q -r -t ]  [ -f format ]

DESCRIPTION

     nncheck will report if there are some articles on the system
     which you have not read.

     Without options, nncheck will simply print a message report-
     ing the number of unread articles with the following format:
          There are 327 unread articles in 25 groups
     and when there are no unread articles, the following message
     will be printed:
          No News (is good news)

     nncheck will exit with a value of  0  if  there  are  unread
     articles,  and 99 if there is no news (see the exception for
     the -r option.)

     It is important to notice that even though  unread  articles
     have  been  reported by nncheck, the actual number of unread
     articles may be much lower (or even zero) when nn is invoked
     to  read  the  articles.  This is because the calculation of
     the number of unread articles  is  only  based  on  recorded
     article  number intervals.  Invoking nn to read the articles
     may reveal that the articles have previously  been  read  in
     another  news  group, have been expired, or are killed using
     the auto-kill facility.

     The following options are used to modify the amount and for-
     mat of the output from nncheck:

     -Q    Quiet operation.  No output is produced, only the exit
          status indicate whether there is unread news.

     -t    Print the name of each group with unread articles, and
          how  many unread articles there are (not counting split
          digests!).

     -r    Output a single integer value specifying the number of
          unread  articles,  and  exit  with a 0 status (somebody
          told me this would be useful).

     -f format
          Output the number of unread articles using  the  speci-
          fied format.  The format is a text that may contain the
          following %-escapes:

9 %-code resulting output

9                    %u        "uuu unread articles"

                    %i        "is" if 1 unread article, else "are"
                    %U        "uuu"
                    %G        "ggg"
9          where uuu is the number of unread articles, and ggg  is
          the number of groups with unread articles.
9          For example, the default output format is
               "There %i %u in %g"
          which I prefer to the following less perfect format:
               "There are %U unread article(s) in %G group(s)"

FILES

     ~/.newsrc       The record of read articles
     $db/MASTER      The database master index

SEE ALSO

     nn(1),   nngoback(1),   nngrab(1),   nngrep(1),   nnpost(1),
     nntidy(1)
     nnadmin(1M), nnusage(1M), nnmaster(1M)

AUTHOR

     Kim F. Storm, Texas Instruments A/S, Denmark
     E-mail: storm@texas.dk