.TH HTABLE 8 "4 March 1983"
.UC 4
.SH NAME
htable \- convert NIC standard format host tables
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B /etc/htable
.I file
.SH DESCRIPTION
.I Htable
is used to convert host files in the format specified
in Internet RFC 810 to the format used by the network
library routines.  Three files are created as a result
of running 
.IR htable :
.IR hosts ,
.IR networks ,
and
.IR gateways .
The 
.I hosts
file is used by the 
.IR gethostent (3N)
routines in mapping host names to addresses.
The
.I networks
file is used by the
.IR getnetent (3N)
routines in mapping network names to numbers.
The
.I gateways
file is used by the routing daemon
in identifying ``passive'' Internet gateways;
see
.IR routed (8C)
for an explanation.
.PP
If any of the files
.IR localhosts ,
.IR localnetworks ,
or
.I localgateways
are present in the current directory,
the file's contents is prepended to the
output file without interpretation.  This
allows sites to maintain local aliases and
entries which are not normally present in the
master database.
.PP
.I Htable
is best used in conjunction with the
.IR gettable (8C)
program which retrieves the NIC database from a host.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
intro(3N),
gettable(8C)
.SH BUGS
Does not properly calculate the
.I gateways
file.