# News configuration The following configuration items define how Liberator manages news headline data. ## add-newscodes `add-newscodes` specifies a list of strings that Liberator should identify as news codes regardless of whether the strings meet the criteria for automatic identification of news codes. Special characters used in news codes listed in `add-newscodes` do not need to be listed in [newscode-valid-chars](#newscode-valid-chars). `add-newscodes` only takes effect if [newscode-exceptions](#newscode-exceptions) is TRUE. **📌 NOTE**\ Liberator does not support lower-case letters in news codes. Using `add-newscodes` and/or [newscode-valid-chars](#newscode-valid-chars) to make Liberator recognise news codes containing lower-case letters will not have the intended effect. Liberator converts all news codes to upper-case before they are matched against a search string. `add-newscodes` is one of the items used by Liberator to determine if a filter string applied to a news feed is a news code or a general search string. A news feed’s filter string is automatically identified as a news code if either of the following two criteria are met: * the filter string is equal to or less than [newscode-max-length](#newscode-max-length) in length, and composed solely of upper-case letters and the punctuation characters included in [newscode-valid-chars](#newscode-valid-chars) * [newscodes-exceptions](#newscode-exceptions) is TRUE and the string is listed in an `add-newscodes` item **Syntax**: `add-newscodes ... ` **Type**: array of strings (space separated) **Default value**: none ## newscode-exceptions `newscode-exceptions` specifies whether to allow specific exceptions to the rules for identifying news codes. `newscode-exceptions` is one of the items used by Liberator to determine if a filter string applied to a news feed is a news code or a general search string. A news feed’s filter string is automatically identified as a news code if either of the following two criteria are met: * the filter string is equal to or less than [newscode-max-length](#newscode-max-length) in length, and composed solely of upper-case letters and the characters included in [newscode-valid-chars](#newscode-valid-chars) * `newscodes-exceptions` is TRUE and the string is listed in an [add-newscodes](#add-newscodes) item **Syntax**: `newscodes-exceptions TRUE` **Type**: boolean **Default value**: `FALSE` (no exceptions to the rules for identifying newscodes are allowed) ## newscode-max-length `newscode-max-length` sets the maximum length of a filter string that can be automatically identified as a news code. `newscode-max-length` is one of the items used by Liberator to determine if a filter string applied to a news feed is a news code or a general search string. A news feed’s filter string is automatically identified as a news code if either of the following two criteria are met: * the filter string is equal to or less than `newscode-max-length` in length, and composed solely of upper-case letters and the characters included in [newscode-valid-chars](#newscode-valid-chars) * [newscodes-exceptions](#newscode-exceptions) is TRUE and the string is listed in an [add-newscodes](#add-newscodes) item **Syntax**: `newscode-max-length ` **Type**: integer **Default value**: `4` ## newscode-valid-chars `newscode-valid-chars` controls the range of punctuation characters that may be present in a valid news code. Upper-case letters are recognised as valid characters by default and don’t need to be specified in newscode-valid-chars. **📌 NOTE**\ Liberator does not support lower-case letters in news codes. Using [add-newscodes](#add-newscodes) and/or `newscode-valid-chars` to make Liberator recognise news codes containing lower-case letters will not have the intended effect. Liberator converts all news codes to upper-case before they are matched against a search string. `newscode-valid-chars` is one of the items used by Liberator to determine if a filter string applied to a news feed is a news code or a general search string. A news feed’s filter string is automatically identified as a news code if either of the following two criteria are met: * the filter string is equal to or less than [newscode-max-length](#newscode-max-length) in length, and composed solely of upper-case letters and the characters included in `newscode-valid-chars` * [newscodes-exceptions](#newscode-exceptions) is TRUE and the string is listed in an [add-newscodes](#add-newscodes) item **Syntax**: `newscode-valid-chars ` **Type**: string **Default value**: ``/.`` ## newsitems-max `newsitems-max` specifies the maximum number of news headlines that Liberator sends to a client for any one request. **Syntax**: `newsitems-max ` **Type**: integer **Default value**: `500` ## newsitems-saved `newsitems-saved` specifies the maximum number of news headlines that Liberator caches in memory. When the maximum number of stored headlines is reached, the arrival of a new headline causes the oldest headline to be deleted. **Syntax**: `newsitems-saved ` **Type**: integer **Default value**: `500` ## news-log `news-log` specifies the filename of the current news log. Logging of news headlines is disabled by default. News logs are used by Liberator to replay news headlines on startup. **Supported substitution tokens** | Token | Description | | --- | --- | | %a | The DataSource [application-name](../datasource/datasource-run-time-environment-configuration.md#application-name). | | %h | The host name of the machine on which this DataSource application is running. | The conventional value for news-log is 'news.log'. Log files are written to the location specified by the [log-dir](../datasource/datasource-logging-configuration.md#log-dir) configuration item. **📌 NOTE**\ Replaying of news headlines is disabled by default. To replay news headlines, you must specify the [news-log](#news-log) and [news-replay](#news-replay) configuration items, and optionally any of [news-replay-days](#news-replay-days) and [news-replay-files](#news-replay-files). **Syntax**: `news-log ` **Type**: string **Default value**: none (news headlines are not logged) ## news-purge-days `news-purge-days` specifies the number of day’s worth of headlines to retain during a daily purge of news headlines from Liberator’s cache, counting back from when the purge occurs. The default value is zero (days), meaning all headlines are purged. To enable daily purging, specify [news-purge-time](#news-purge-time). **Syntax**: `news-purge-days ` **Type**: integer **Default value**: `0` (all headlines are purged) ## news-purge-time `news-purge-time` schedules a time of day, in minutes after midnight, to purge old news headlines from Liberator’s cache. To disable purging of news headlines, set `news-purge-time` to -1 (the default). To specify the maximum age of headlines to retain during a purge, set [news-purge-days](#news-purge-days). **Syntax**: `news-purge-time ` **Type**: integer **Default value**: `-1` (purging of news headlines is disabled) ## news-replay `news-replay` is used in conjunction with [news-replay-days](#news-replay-days) to limit the age of headlines replayed from the news log on startup of Liberator. **📌 NOTE**\ Replaying of news headlines is disabled by default. To replay news headlines, you must specify the [news-log](#news-log) and [news-replay](#news-replay) configuration items, and optionally any of [news-replay-days](#news-replay-days) and [news-replay-files](#news-replay-files). The behaviour of `news-replay` depends on whether its value is positive or negative. * when `news-replay` is zero or positive, news headlines are replayed that were logged more recently than `news-replay` minutes after midnight, [news-replay-days](#news-replay-days) ago. * when `news-replay` is negative, news headlines are replayed that were logged more recently than `news-replay` minutes before Liberator was restarted (the value of [news-replay-days](#news-replay-days) is ignored) **Syntax**: `news-replay ` **Type**: integer **Default value**: none (news headlines are not replayed) **Examples:** ``` # Example 1: Replay all headlines logged after 0 minutes past midnight, 3 days ago news-replay 0 news-replay-days 3 # Example 2: Replay all headlines logged within the last 24 hours (1440 minutes) news-replay -1440 ``` ## news-replay-days `news-replay-days` is used in conjunction with [news-replay](#news-replay) to limit the age of headlines replayed from the news log on startup of Liberator. **📌 NOTE**\ Replaying of news headlines is disabled by default. To replay news headlines, you must specify the [news-log](#news-log) and [news-replay](#news-replay) configuration items, and optionally any of [news-replay-days](#news-replay-days) and [news-replay-files](#news-replay-files). Whether news-replay-days is used depends on the value of [news-replay](#news-replay). * when [news-replay](#news-replay) is zero or positive, news headlines are replayed that were logged more recently than [news-replay](#news-replay) minutes after midnight, `news-replay-days` ago * when [news-replay](#news-replay) is negative, news headlines are replayed that were logged more recently than [news-replay](#news-replay-days) minutes before Liberator was restarted (the value of `news-replay-days` is ignored) **Syntax**: `news-replay-days ` **Type**: integer **Default value**: `0` **Examples**: ``` # Example 1: Replay all headlines logged after 0 minutes past midnight, 3 days ago news-replay 0 news-replay-days 3 # Example 2: Replay all headlines logged within the last 24 hours (1440 minutes) news-replay -1440 ``` ## news-replay-files `news-replay-files` is an optional item that lists the news logs to replay on startup of Liberator. By default, only the current news log (see [news-log](#news-log)) is replayed. **📌 NOTE**\ Replaying of news headlines is disabled by default. To replay news headlines, you must specify the [news-log](#news-log) and [news-replay](#news-replay) configuration items, and optionally any of [news-replay-days](#news-replay-days) and [news-replay-files](#news-replay-files). The list of files must be in chronological order, with the oldest log file first and the current news log file last. The default log-cycling settings use a cyclical naming-scheme for archived logs. While it is possible to order archive logs chronologically, the order changes through the log cycle. To avoid having to edit `news-replay-files` each time Liberator is started, it is recommended that the log-cycling scheme for the news log be changed to one compatible with `news-replay-files`. The examples below show configuration settings both with and without a customised log-cycling scheme. If a news log file is specified without an absolute path name, the order of locations in which it will be searched for is: 1. The Liberator root directory 2. The directory containing the current news log (see [news-log](#news-log)) 3. The log root directory **Syntax**: `news-replay-files ... ` **Type**: string array **Default value**: none **Examples**: If the default log-cycling settings are used, the order of files supplied to `news-replay-files` changes depending on the time and day of week: | Liberator restarted between... | Configuration Setting (oldest log file first) | | --- | --- | | `Sun 04:00 _and_ Mon 04:00` | `news-replay-files news.7 news.1 news.2 news.3 news.4 news.5 news.6 news.log` | | `Mon 04:00 _and_ Tue 04:00` | `news-replay-files news.1 news.2 news.3 news.4 news.5 news.6 news.7 news.log` | | `Tue 04:00 _and_ Wed 04:00` | `news-replay-files news.2 news.3 news.4 news.5 news.6 news.7 news.1 news.log` | | `Wed 04:00 _and_ Thu 04:00` | `news-replay-files news.3 news.4 news.5 news.6 news.7 news.1 news.2 news.log` | | `Thu 04:00 _and_ Fri 04:00` | `news-replay-files news.4 news.5 news.6 news.7 news.1 news.2 news.3 news.log` | | `Fri 04:00 _and_ Sat 04:00` | `news-replay-files news.5 news.6 news.7 news.1 news.2 news.3 news.4 news.log` | | `Sat 04:00 _and_ Sun 04:00` | `news-replay-files news.6 news.7 news.1 news.2 news.3 news.4 news.5 news.log` | To avoid having to regularly reconfigure the value of `news-replay-files` before starting Liberator, you should customise the log-cycling settings for the news log. The example configuration below avoids a cyclical naming-scheme by maintaining a single, larger archive with a constant name: ``` # Cycle the news log every 7 days (10080 minutes) at 4 a.m. (240 minutes) # Maintain only one archive (news.old) add-log name news_log time 240 period 10080 suffix .old end-log ``` The customised log-cycling scheme for the news log allows us to specify a fixed list of files to `news-replay-files`: ``` news-replay-files news.old news.log ``` --- **See also:** * How can I...[Configure a connection to a news service](liberator-configure-a-connection-to-a-news-service.md) * Reference: [DataSource logging configuration](../datasource/datasource-logging-configuration.md)