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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!sdcsvax!sdcrdcf!lwall
From: lwall@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Larry Wall)
Newsgroups: net.news.b
Subject: Re: suggested enhancement to rn
Message-ID: <1512@sdcrdcf.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 30-Nov-84 19:44:59 EST
Article-I.D.: sdcrdcf.1512
Posted: Fri Nov 30 19:44:59 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 2-Dec-84 06:02:09 EST
References: <319@qantel.UUCP> <609@umn-cs.UUCP> <1529@pur-phy.UUCP>
Reply-To: lwall@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Larry Wall)
Distribution: net
Organization: System Development Corp. R+D, Santa Monica
Lines: 32
Summary: 

In article <1529@pur-phy.UUCP> crl@pur-phy.UUCP (Charles LaBrec) writes:
> I don't understand this discussion.  I added the "XREF" patch to inews
> and after that, rn stopped showing articles more than once that were
> *simultaneously* posted to more than one group.  Of course, it can't
> do this to articles that were posted to single groups multiple times.

It appears that on the systems where XREF isn't working, much of the time
it is because inews and rn don't agree on the system name.  To find out
inews's idea of the name, type 'v' to see the whole header on a
cross-referenced article, and look at the system name on the Xref line.
To find out rn's notion of the system name, type /<esc>H.  If they don't
agree you have the problem, and need to speak to either inews or rn.

> One suggestion, though, is for rn to not bother marking these articles
> as read in unsubscribed newsgroups.  Since I never read the group, the
> newsrc line gets very long with single article marks.

If the expired article checker is working (did you install patch #4?), your
lines shouldn't be getting more than a few hundred bytes long, even in
newsgroups you never visit, such as unsubscribed newsgroups.  If it really
bugs you, delete the line with an editor, and rn won't care.  (However,
readnews will, I think, add it back onto your .newsrc, thinking it to be a
new group.)

Rn also doesn't care how long the line gets, till you run out of memory.
I used to have some lines over 1024 long before the expired article checker
was added.  One thing that can subvert the expired article checker is if
you have any "expire orphans"--articles that should have expired but won't
because they aren't in the history file for some reason.

Larry Wall
{allegra,burdvax,cbosgd,hplabs,ihnp4,sdcsvax}!sdcrdcf!lwall