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What is snarf?
snarf is a command line resource grabber. It can transfer files through the http, gopher, finger, and ftp protocols without user interaction. It is small and fast.

How do I use snarf?
If you have an URL (for example, http://foo.bar.com/picture.jpg), you type the following (the $ below represents the command prompt):
$ snarf http://foo.bar.com/picture.jpg
snarf will fetch the file and save it to your local system with the name picture.jpg. If you want to save the file under a different name (for example, background.jpg), you type the following:
$ snarf http://foo.bar.com/picture.jpg background.jpg
snarf saves the file with the name background.jpg. If you want snarf to send the file to standard output, you would type the following:
$ snarf http://foo.bar.com/picture.jpg -
When snarf sees a dash as the local file name, it sends everything it fetches to standard output.

Special cases
If you specify an FTP URL that ends with a slash, snarf returns a directory listing instead of a particular file. If you specify an HTTP URL that ends with a slash, snarf returns the default index document (usually index.html).

What does snarf look like?
I have created a screen shot of snarf in action.

Nitty-gritty
snarf is designed to automate repetitive tasks such as downloading the latest Dr. Fun cartoon. It is not designed to be a whizzy, all purpose tool. It is not designed to be Netscape or Lynx or ncftp. It is fast and simple because it doesn't need to be anything else.

Zachary Beane