Subject: Re: Whois was annoying me...
To: Chuck Yerkes <chuck+nbsd@2003.snew.com>
From: Erik E. Fair <fair@netbsd.org>
List: current-users
Date: 01/23/2003 00:21:16
Chuck,
To amplify what Greg Woods said, the WHOIS protocol
specification is very, very simple, and imposes almost no format to
speak of on the output from the server. I reworked the whois(1) man
page before the last release; you might find it edifying.
I also submitted a PR years ago suggesting that we replace with
rwhois or whois++ but the utility of that depends squarely on servers
for those extended protocols being deployed by the registries, and I
don't know that they have.
Not a very satisfying answer, but that's the state of the world as I
understand it.
Erik <fair@clock.org>