Newsgroups: news.software.b
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: minor C news hassle
Message-ID: <1989Jul20.181937.19387@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <1989Jul17.045108.8677@numm.nu.oz>
Date: Thu, 20 Jul 89 18:19:37 GMT

In article <1989Jul17.045108.8677@numm.nu.oz> alan@numm.nu.oz (Alan Hargreaves) writes:
>When I rebuilt and installed it I [changed] it. The installation
>then said "Oh, there is already a $NEWSCTL/bin/config. I wont rewrite
>it". Thus when setdirs() was called from relaynews, it said "Oh, NEWSPATH
>isn't what I expected, call unprivileged() and run thus".

Sigh.  This particular problem is arguably not the software's fault, but
there is a more general one here.  The installation stuff does deliberately
refuse to overwrite existing files... but what if you're re-installing it
and *want* those files overwritten?  I'm going to have to look at this.

Probably what is wanted is a separation between two classes of control
files, the ones that are supplied only as samples and will certainly have
to be customized locally (and hence should not be overwritten with new
copies of the samples), and the ones that are supplied/built as real
parts of the software and should change when it does.
-- 
$10 million equals 18 PM       |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
(Pentagon-Minutes). -Tom Neff  | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu