RFC 812 (rfc812) - Page 2 of 3
NICNAME/WHOIS
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
RFC 812 1 March 1982
NICNAME/WHOIS
EXISTING USER PROGRAMS
NICNAME has been chosen as the global name for the user
program, although some sites may choose to use the more
familiar name of "WHOIS". There are versions of NICNAME for
Tenex, Tops-20, and Unix. The Tenex and Tops-20 programs are
written in assembly language (FAIL/MACRO), and the Unix
version is written in C. They are easy to invoke, taking one
argument which is passed directly to the NICNAME server at
SRI-NIC. Normally it is best to use the NIC-supplied
programs, if possible, since the protocol will continue to
evolve. Contact NIC@SRI-NIC for copies.
COMMAND LINES AND REPLIES
A command line is normally a single name specification. The
easiest way to obtain the most recent documentation on name
specifications is to give the server a command line consisting
of "?" (that is, a question-mark alone as the name
specification). The response from the NICNAME server will
list all possible formats that can be used.
The responses are not currently intended to be
machine-readable; the information is meant to be passed back
directly to a human user. The following three examples will
illustrate the use of NICNAME.
Command line: ?
Response:
Please enter a name or a handle ("ident"), such as "Smith"
or "SRI-NIC". Starting with a period forces a name-only
search;
starting with exclamation point forces handle-only. Examples:
Smith [looks for name or handle SMITH ]
!SRI-NIC [looks for handle SRI-NIC only ]
.Smith, John [looks for name JOHN SMITH only ]
Adding "..." to the argument will match anything from that
point,
e.g. "ZU..." will match ZUL, ZUM, etc.
To have the ENTIRE membership list of a group or
organization,
if you are asking about a group or org, shown with the record,
use
an asterisk character "*" directly preceding the given
argument.
[CAUTION: If there are a lot of members this will take a long
time!]
You may of course use exclamation point and asterisk, or a
period
and asterisk together.