Newsgroups: news.software.b
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Question: C-news & /bin/mail
Message-ID: <1990Dec30.032132.10805@zoo.toronto.edu>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <1990Dec20.150245.28078@progress.com>
Date: Sun, 30 Dec 90 03:21:32 GMT

In article <1990Dec20.150245.28078@progress.com> erf@progress.COM (Eric Feigenson) writes:
>(1) We got a version ctl message, and the mail reply failed.  This happened
>    because /bin/mail is stupid on this system, and it couldn't figure
>    out version@uunet.uu.net as an address...

This is why (a) build asks whether your mailer understands "@", and
(b) doc/interface explicitly discusses the demands C News places on mail.
One fix for difficulties with this is to place a shell file named "mail"
at a suitable place in the news search patch -- e.g. NEWSBIN -- so that
the news software gets that rather than your system "mail".

>    Is there something I'm unaware of in the patch/install process that
>    would inhibit installing over something that I've changed and alert me
>    so that I don't have to tax my feeble brain and remember exactly where
>    I've made changes?  I admit it; I'm lazy.

This is a difficult problem, and one that we unfortunately have no magic
solution for.  Maintaining local modifications in the presence of patches
that (necessarily) assume unmodified software is just plain awkward.
-- 
"The average pointer, statistically,    |Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
points somewhere in X." -Hugh Redelmeier| henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry