On Sat, 2011-09-10 at 11:23 -0400, me at tdiehl.org wrote: > Where is this syntax documented? I see the -h option in the man page > but the n + part is not there and I would like to understand where > that comes from. whois -h whois.arin.net ? The ' n + ' are parameters (arguments) introduced by ARIN. They are not part of the standard WHOIS. To reduce typing I now use for WHOIS:- .w 65.65.65.65 .w being a one line script containing (whois $1). When that encounters the ARIN deficiency, I simply up-arrow to get the previous line and add 'a' .wa 65.65.65.65 .wa is my ARIN whois command (whois -h whois.arin.net n + $1) However, when ARIN redirects the original enquiry to a RWHOIS, the query is broken and unrecognised by the RWHOIS whois -h whois.arin.net n + 66.66.66.66 It is a bit of a North American mess. I hope Europe's RIPE retains its fully functioning WHOIS. Paul.