Newsgroups: news.software.b Path: utzoo!utstat!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!math.lsa.umich.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!julius.cs.uiuc.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!mp.cs.niu.edu!rickert From: rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) Subject: Re: Cnews and old news Message-ID: <1990Sep24.002412.2558@mp.cs.niu.edu> Organization: Northern Illinois University References: <26675@mimsy.umd.edu> <1990Sep23.042833.24834@zoo.toronto.edu> Date: Mon, 24 Sep 90 00:24:12 GMT Lines: 22 In article flee@dictionopolis.cs.psu.edu (Felix Lee) writes: >>The trouble is that getdate() is relatively costly > >How about adding a "Machine-Readable-Date:" header in Unix time or >network time? Would it be worth it even if only a few sites added >such a field? > How about checking the date, but making the date check optional. It could be controlled by an environment variable set in ${NEWSCTL}/bin/config so that it would be easy to switch on and off. That would allow sites which have neighbors who periodically release old news to throw it out. Other sites would not need to do anything. Incidentally in looking at some of the approx 8 Meg of month old news we received over the last two days, I notice that the PATH header has some sites shown twice. Isn't there supposed to be a check for this? -- =*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*= Neil W. Rickert, Computer Science Northern Illinois Univ. DeKalb, IL 60115. +1-815-753-6940