Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!bionet!ig!ames!ucsd!brian
From: brian@ucsd.EDU (Brian Kantor)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: Cnews active min field (WAS Re: Cnews setuid(geteuid))
Message-ID: <1812@ucsd.EDU>
Date: 3 Jul 89 00:09:55 GMT
References: <1989Jun25.174800.13276@utzoo.uucp> <10931@ibmpcug.UUCP> <1989Jun20.213129.8095@utzoo.uucp> <10947@ibmpcug.UUCP> <26-Jun-89.101532@192.41.214.2> <1989Jun28.154945.13805@utzoo.uucp>
Reply-To: brian@ucsd.edu (Brian Kantor)
Organization: The Avant-Garde of the Now, Ltd.
Lines: 13

What deficiency?  NNTP will a) give you the next article, and b) list
and article either by article-id or by ordinal number in the current
newsgroup.

Oh, you wanted a list of valid article numbers ahead of time?  You can
get them the same way you would if you couldn't directly read the
directory; given a minimum number and a maximum number, you could (if
you really wanted to) step through and stat the corresponding filename.
NNTP will let you do that if you wish.

At the time we designed the protocol, no news reader needed a list of
all article numbers ahead of time.  To my knowledge, still none do.
	- Brian