Newsgroups: news.software.b
Path: utzoo!utgpu!utstat!geoff
From: geoff@utstat.uucp (Geoff Collyer)
Subject: Re: active file query
Message-ID: <1989Jun16.232036.18456@utstat.uucp>
Organization: Statistics, U. of Toronto
References: <1139@servax0.essex.ac.uk>
Date: Fri, 16 Jun 89 23:20:36 GMT

Luxury.  We have articles locally with numbers above 37000.  Long-time
major news relays can expect to exceed 99999 sooner than four years from
now.

When article numbers exceed 99999, I believe B news will not be prepared
and will misbehave (it might start over at 0).  The news readers we
examined don't seem to care about the size the article numbers, so I
just added five zeroes to the front of each article number in the active
file and tweaked C news to cope by using as many digits as are present
in the active file, and by complaining and quitting if there aren't
enough digitis for the next article number.
-- 
Geoff Collyer		utzoo!utstat!geoff, geoff@utstat.toronto.edu
``... skill such as yours is evidence of a misspent youth.'' - Herbert Spencer