Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!know!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!peregrine!ccicpg!hobbit!ndjc
From: ndjc@hobbit.UUCP (pri=-10 Nick Crossley)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Re: This looks like a job for Perl Man (NNTP)
Summary: Shell(!) script for marking old news articles
Message-ID: <88197@hobbit.UUCP>
Date: 28 Sep 90 08:29:53 GMT
References: <20550@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU>
Organization: ICL North America, Irvine, CA 92718
Lines: 81

In article <20550@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU> pvo@sapphire.OCE.ORST.EDU (Paul O'Neill) writes:
>You quickly discover that your .newsrc file is useless because the article
>numbers on the new server are different than the article #'s on your
>Looks like a bear, but probably manageable in perl.
>...
>Uh, I don't suppose anyone's already done this?  Heh, heh.

This is not really what you asked for, but it might be useful to some.
Quite some time ago I was having problems on a system where my .newsrc
file was lost, or the articles were renumbered, etc.  I wrote the
following shell script (this was before perl!) which marks as read
all articles older than the specified number of days.  I have not
rewritten this in perl, since I have never needed to run it recently!

--------------------- cut here ---------------------------
:	Mark as read all news articles older than $1 days

NEWS=/usr/spool/news
V=:

case $1 in
	-v)	V=echo ; shift ;;
esac

case $1 in
	"")	set 2 ;;
	[0-9]*)	: OK ;;
	*)	echo "Usage:  $0 [-v] [days]" 1>&2 ; exit 1 ;;
esac


cp .newsrc savednewsrc
{
	for	group in `sed -n 's/:.*//p' <.newsrc`
	do
		echo "/^$group:/c"
		echo "$group: \c"
		dir=$NEWS/`echo $group | tr '.' '/'`
		if	[ ! -d $dir ]
		then	echo
		else
			( cd $dir ; find . -type f -mtime +$1 -print ) |
			sed -e 's!\./!!' -e '/\//d' |
			sort +0n -1 |
			awk '
			NR==1	{  srange=1; erange=$1; next  }
				{
					if	($1 == erange+1)
					{
						# continue range
						erange++
						next
					}
					else if	(srange == erange)
						printf "%d,",srange
					else	printf "%d-%d,",srange,erange
					srange=$1
					erange=$1
				}
			END	{
					if	(erange == 0)
						printf "\n"
					else if	(srange == erange)
						printf "%d\n",srange
					else	printf "%d-%d\n",srange,erange
				}
			'
		fi
		echo "."
		$V "$group done" >&2
	done
	echo "w"
	echo "q"
} |
ed - .newsrc
---------------------- End of script ---------------------------
-- 

<<< standard disclaimers >>>
Nick Crossley, ICL NA, 9801 Muirlands, Irvine, CA 92718-2521, USA 714-458-7282
uunet!ccicpg!ndjc  /  ndjc@ccicpg.UUCP