Article 2755 of net.sources:
Path: brl-smoke!brl-adm!rutgers!clyde!watmath!sunybcs!uggworek
From: [email protected] (Don Gworek)
Newsgroups: net.sources
Subject: cn -- a checknews script
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Date: 1 Dec 86 03:31:17 GMT
Sender: [email protected]
Reply-To: [email protected] (Don Gworek)
Distribution: na
Organization: SUNY/Buffalo Computer Science
Lines: 31
Keywords: awk, rn

Here's a cute little shell script that lists available news
articles in multicolumn form, such as:

[31] comp.lang.c        [ 1] wny.yumyum         [ 2] mod.sources
[ 4] comp.unix.questio  [ 1] comp.unix.wizards  [ 1] mod.computers.sun
[ 2] mod.computers.wor


The script uses rn's -c and -s options.  It's based on an
alias by Jeff Forys at CU/Boulder.

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#! /bin/sh

# Sun Nov 30 22:34:48 EST 1986  (...!sunybcs!gworek / ...!boulder!forys)
#
#       cn - Check for available news, multicolumn style.
#

       rn -s250 -c | \
               awk '{ \
                       printf "[%2.2s] %-17.17s  ", $5, $4; \
                       if ((NR % 3) == 0) \
                               print ""; \
               } END { \
                       if ((NR) && (NR % 3)) \
                               print ""; \
               }'
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