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From: bob@MorningStar.Com (Bob Sutterfield)
Newsgroups: alt.sources.d,comp.unix.admin,comp.emacs
Subject: Re: How do I get RFC articles?
Message-ID: <BOB.91Jun19090931@volitans.MorningStar.Com>
Date: 19 Jun 91 13:09:41 GMT
References: <1991Jun17.134449.18197@mlb.semi.harris.com>
	<1991Jun18.010117.22207@leland.Stanford.EDU>
	<1991Jun19.005837.21993@cbfsb.att.com>
Sender: usenet@MorningStar.COM (USENET Administrator)
Reply-To: bob@MorningStar.Com (Bob Sutterfield)
Followup-To: alt.sources.d,comp.unix.admin
Organization: Morning Star Technologies
Lines: 41
In-Reply-To: Dan_Jacobson@ATT.COM's message of 19 Jun 91 00:58:37 GMT

In article <1991Jun19.005837.21993@cbfsb.att.com> Dan_Jacobson@ATT.COM writes:

   #From: sahayman@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Steve Hayman)
   #Newsgroups: alt.sources
   #Subject: retrieve RFC's automatically from uunet
   #Date: 11 Apr 91 22:22:30 GMT
   #Organization: Computer Science, Indiana University
   #
   #I find this little script handy, it retrieves RFC's automatically
   #from uunet via anonymous ftp and sticks them on stdout.
   #So, instead of keeping your own little collection of RFCs
   #hidden away somewhere and forgetting what directory you
   #put them in, you can just use
   #
   #% rfc index | more

I'm shocked that Dan, rarely one to miss a chance to proselytize for
GNU Emacs, didn't mention ange-ftp.el and crypt.el.  Ange-ftp.el
manages FTP connections, transparently associating buffers in a local
Emacs with files on remote machines.  It's one of my favorite tools
for editing files on IP-accessible machines without reasonable
editors, or on those on which I have no personal account, or when I'd
rather get the response time of using a local application.  Crypt.el
can uncompress (local or remote) files as they're read and recompress
them as they're written.

If I tell my Emacs "C-x C-f /ftp.uu.net:/rfc/rfc874$", ange-ftp opens
an anonymous FTP connection to UUNET (since I have a line like
"machine ftp.uu.net login anonymous password bob@morningstar.com" in
my ~/.netrc), gets a directory listing, and completes the "rfc874.Z".
As the file is "read" into my buffer, crypt.el notes from its magic
number that it's compressed, and passes it through "compress -d"
before showing it to me.

I've solved some icky problems in my own networking code by browsing
the examples in the uunet:bsd-sources/ directories, using ange-ftp and
dired and friends.

All this stuff is, of course, available from the Elisp Archives via
anonymous FTP from tut.cis.ohio-state.edu or via anonymous UUCP from
osu-cis.