Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!daver!tscs!tct!chip
From: chip@tct.com (Chip Salzenberg)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: C News batcher goes insane - film at eleven
Message-ID: <286B53CC.542B@tct.com>
Date: 28 Jun 91 15:20:43 GMT
References: <1991Jun26.035746.14008@alembic.acs.com>
Organization: TC Telemanagement, Clearwater, FL
Lines: 46

According to csu@alembic.acs.com (Dave Mack):
>After staring at the code in sendbatches and batcher for a while,
>I suspect that a major rewrite of sendbatches would be necessary
>to fix this.

Not at all.  Just have sendbatches check for and throw away any
zero-length batches before compression/transmission.  Here are diffs:

Index: sendbatches
***************
*** 153,156 ****
--- 153,164 ----
  		for f in $them
  		do
+ 			# Verify that at least one file in the batch exists.
+ 			# If not, ignore the batch.
+ 			any=
+ 			for ff in `sed 's/ .*$//' $f`
+ 			do
+ 				test -f $ff && { any=yes; break; }
+ 			done
+ 
  			# Sigh... sh -x on this won't work, because the -x
  			# output ends up in /tmp/nb$$, and there is no way
***************
*** 159,164 ****
  			# processes in a pipeline) or (b) turn off -x for
  			# a moment in a portable way.
! 			( ( cd $NEWSARTS ; $batcher $here/$f ) | $muncher |
! 						$sender $sys ) >/tmp/nb$$ 2>&1
  			if test $? -eq 0 -a ! -s /tmp/nb$$
  			then
--- 167,175 ----
  			# processes in a pipeline) or (b) turn off -x for
  			# a moment in a portable way.
! 			if test -n "$any"
! 			then
! 				( ( cd $NEWSARTS ; $batcher $here/$f ) |
! 				  $muncher | $sender $sys )
! 			fi >/tmp/nb$$ 2>&1
  			if test $? -eq 0 -a ! -s /tmp/nb$$
  			then
-- 
Chip Salzenberg at Teltronics/TCT     <chip@tct.com>, <uunet!pdn!tct!chip>
 "I want to mention that my opinions whether real or not are MY opinions."
             -- the inevitable William "Billy" Steinmetz