
     How old is your news?  I wondered that, particularly after
seeing a bunch of "file system full" errors :-(  I know what the
expire arguments were, but what was actually being done?

     AGEF (age files) is a program that can help.  Feed it a list
of directories.  (Regular files are ok, but boring.)  AGEF will
recursively descend into each directory, and produce a table of
file sizes according to age.  The output can show you what's been
filling up your disk :-(, or where you can increase the expiration
time limit :-)  As a sample, here's a run:

% cd /usr/spool/news/news
% agef *
    7 days    14 days    30 days    45 days   46+ days        Total  Name
---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ------------  ----
  20   83k   15   41k   26   61k                          61   185k  admin
   3    4k    3    5k   15   21k                          21    30k  config
  52  179k   49  141k   78  202k                         179   522k  groups
  21  299k    4   42k                                     25   341k  lists
   7   26k    6   14k   18   58k                          31    98k  misc
   5    6k    4    6k   20   28k                          29    40k  newsites
  34  127k   32   90k   44  109k                         110   326k  software
   5   21k    2    3k    3   14k                          10    38k  stargate
   6   20k    2    3k   15   38k                          23    61k  sysadmin

 153  765k  117  345k  219  531k                         489  1641k  Grand Total

     Columns are not cumulative.  If a file is 26 days old, for
example, it would only be listed in the 30-day column.  Of course,
the total row/column does the obvious thing.

     Warnings:  AGEF does not know about hard links.  If a file
has multiple directory entries (i.e., it was cross-posted), it
will be counted twice.  AGEF does know about directories, and it
does not count them.  Who really wants to know how old a directory
is, anyhow?

     If you add or delete age catetories, be sure to change the
definition of AGES.

	David S. Hayes, The Merlin of Avalon
	PhoneNet:	(202) 694-6900
	ARPA:		merlin%hqda-ai.uucp@brl.arpa
	UUCP:		...!seismo!sundc!hqda-ai!merlin

