=head1 NAME

overchan - Batch update the INN overview database

=head1 SYNOPSIS

B<overchan> [I<file> ...]

=head1 DESCRIPTION

B<overchan> reads overview data from the specified files or from standard
input if no files are specified, and writes that data into the INN
overview database.  (The file C<-> means to read data from standard input
as well.)

Normally, overview data is stored by B<innd> for articles as they're
accepted.  For performance, however, it's sometimes useful to have
overview data written by a separate process.  To do this, set
I<useoverchan> to true in F<inn.conf> to tell B<innd> to not write
overview data directly and then add an B<overchan> channel in
F<newsfeeds>:

    overview!:*:Tc,WnteO:<pathbin>/overchan

where <pathbin> is I<pathbin> in F<inn.conf>.  Additionally, B<overchan>
can be used to bulk-load overview data from appropriately formatted batch
files (such as overflow files from an B<overchan> channel).

Each line of input should have the following format:

    <token> <arrived> <expires> <data>

where <token> is the storage API token of the article in textual form
(surrounded by C<@> characters), <arrived> is the arrival timestamp of the
article in seconds since epoch, <expires> is the expiration time of the
article in seconds since epoch or 0 if there is none, and <data> is the
tab-separated overview data.  Each of these fields must be separated by a
single space.

=head1 HISTORY

Written by Rob Robertson <rob@violet.berkeley.edu> and Rich $alz
<rsalz@uunet.uu.net> for InterNetNews.  Man page rewritten in POD by Russ
Allbery <eagle@eyrie.org>.

=head1 SEE ALSO

inn.conf(5), innd(8), newsfeeds(5)

=cut
