11.8 nntplib -- NNTP protocol client

This module defines the class NNTP which implements the client side of the NNTP protocol. It can be used to implement a news reader or poster, or automated news processors. For more information on NNTP (Network News Transfer Protocol), see Internet RFC 977.

Here are two small examples of how it can be used. To list some statistics about a newsgroup and print the subjects of the last 10 articles:

>>> s = NNTP('news.cwi.nl')
>>> resp, count, first, last, name = s.group('comp.lang.python')
>>> print 'Group', name, 'has', count, 'articles, range', first, 'to', last
Group comp.lang.python has 59 articles, range 3742 to 3803
>>> resp, subs = s.xhdr('subject', first + '-' + last)
>>> for id, sub in subs[-10:]: print id, sub
... 
3792 Re: Removing elements from a list while iterating...
3793 Re: Who likes Info files?
3794 Emacs and doc strings
3795 a few questions about the Mac implementation
3796 Re: executable python scripts
3797 Re: executable python scripts
3798 Re: a few questions about the Mac implementation 
3799 Re: PROPOSAL: A Generic Python Object Interface for Python C Modules
3802 Re: executable python scripts 
3803 Re: \POSIX{} wait and SIGCHLD
>>> s.quit()
'205 news.cwi.nl closing connection.  Goodbye.'

To post an article from a file (this assumes that the article has valid headers):

>>> s = NNTP('news.cwi.nl')
>>> f = open('/tmp/article')
>>> s.post(f)
'240 Article posted successfully.'
>>> s.quit()
'205 news.cwi.nl closing connection.  Goodbye.'

The module itself defines the following items:

NNTP (host[, port [, user[, password]]])

Return a new instance of the NNTP class, representing a connection to the NNTP server running on host host, listening at port port. The default port is 119. If the optional user and password are provided, the "AUTHINFO USER" and "AUTHINFO PASS" commands are used to identify and authenticate the user to the server.

error_reply

Exception raised when an unexpected reply is received from the server.

error_temp

Exception raised when an error code in the range 400-499 is received.

error_perm

Exception raised when an error code in the range 500-599 is received.

error_proto

Exception raised when a reply is received from the server that does not begin with a digit in the range 1-5.