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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!ihnp4!stolaf!umn-cs!digi-g!dan
From: dan@digi-g.UUCP (Dan Messinger)
Newsgroups: net.unix
Subject: Re: uuxqt deleting files
Message-ID: <509@digi-g.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 12-Mar-85 12:46:31 EST
Article-I.D.: digi-g.509
Posted: Tue Mar 12 12:46:31 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 14-Mar-85 06:41:30 EST
References: <137@anasazi.UUCP>
Reply-To: dan@digi-g.UUCP (dan)
Distribution: net
Organization: Digigraphic Systems Corp., Mpls, MN
Lines: 31
Summary: 

In article <137@anasazi.UUCP> guy@anasazi.UUCP (Guy Finney) writes:
>Ever since we started getting news last November (before that we didn't
>use uucp much), we've noticed that occasionally when uuxqt starts up to
>process its X. files, it will simply delete them and their corresponding
>D. files instead of processing them.  At first we noticed that it seemed
	
We were experiencing the very same problem.  We eventually discovered that
when other sites called us, news would process as it should.  But when
our crontab started a poll to another site, all the news files that we
received would disappear.

THE SOLUTION:  It seems that when crontab fires a process off, there is
no environment.  Or at least no PATH in the environment.  And unbatch
uses execlp() to run rnews.  Get the picture?  I changed the execlp()
to an execl() and hardwired the path to rnews.  While I could have added
a setenv PATH statement to the script that we use for polling, I decided
that the extra copy of sh was unnecessary overhead.

(Note:  this problem started when we received an update to our OS, going
from a mostly V7 to a mostly 4.1.  I'm sure that this problem is a
rarety, and not the general case)

>As you might imagine, this is a vexing problem.  Even more vexing is
>that someone reading this might have a solution which, though
>sent to us, might itself be deleted!  AARRGGHH.

I'll mail you a copy of this, too.


Dan Messinger
ihnp4!umn-cs!digi-g!dan