Newsgroups: news.software.b
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Problem with Cnews 7Sep90 sys file
Message-ID: <1990Sep12.222603.22914@zoo.toronto.edu>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <1990Sep12.151805.4334@nmrdc1.nmrdc.nnmc.navy.mil>
Date: Wed, 12 Sep 90 22:26:03 GMT

In article <1990Sep12.151805.4334@nmrdc1.nmrdc.nnmc.navy.mil> rdc30med@nmrdc1.nmrdc.nnmc.navy.mil (LCDR Michael E. Dobson) writes:
>... in errlog "relaynews: whitespace in system name (or 
>exclusions) for sys file entry ` '".  To correct the problem and get the batches
>processed I had to remove the blank lines in the sys file.
>
>I thought blank lines were ignored in the sys file.  The prototype sys file
>has them.  Has anyone else seen this behavior?

I think the problem here is an ambiguity of wording:  *empty* lines are
ignored, but the ones you've got were not empty -- they contained one
space character each.  This may be the result of getting your distribution
via some data-mangling network like Bitnet that does not preserve empty
lines.  (Some operating systems are incapable of storing a truly empty
line -- there must be at least one character in each line in their files.)
The prototype sys file, as shipped, has really empty lines.

C News has been misinterpreting those non-empty blank lines all along,
probably (!), but only now has it started complaining.  The Sept 1 patch
added checking for inappropriate white space in sys lines, because C News
is fairly intolerant of random white space in there and people were being
tripped up by this.
-- 
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