Path: utzoo!utstat!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!bfmny0!tneff
From: tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: Just how useful is crossposting?
Message-ID: <14932@bfmny0.UU.NET>
Date: 19 Nov 89 17:55:25 GMT
References: <47326@looking.on.ca> <1604@crdos1.crd.ge.COM> <48886@looking.on.ca> <14927@bfmny0.UU.NET> <49584@looking.on.ca>
Reply-To: tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff)
Lines: 24
Summary:
Expires:
Sender:
Followup-To:

In article <49584@looking.on.ca> brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) writes:
>Creating a one line file (for example, under MS-DOS where that can take 4K)
>comes under my definition of wasting disk space!   Even a 1K file
>comes under that definition.

However, my second suggestion -- using a single file to contain a list of
all "links" -- doesn't waste disk space by any reasonable standard.

>The best solution is probably a new file structure, where you simulate
>unix directories to a small extent, with files of pointers to the actual
>text.  (Or even files of message-ids, which are mapped to pointers to the
>text.)

This approach has its portable aspects, but is not foolproof.  For instance,
the issue of concurrent expires (or even concurrent posting) can get
thorny if everything's in one great file.  The host OS simply may not let
you get away with it -- or, a nightmarish buffering and locking scheme
of OS-rivalling complexity may be needed, with little attendant savings.

I think at minimum, an alien implementation should reserve separate
files for each active newsgroup.
-- 
"We plan absentee ownership.  I'll stick to       `o'   Tom Neff
 building ships." -- George Steinbrenner, 1973    o"o   tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET