Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!epiwrl!epimass!jbuck
From: jbuck@epimass.UUCP (Joe Buck)
Newsgroups: comp.os.eunice,news.software.b
Subject: Re: Eunice can't deal with 5-part newsgroup names
Message-ID: <1094@epimass.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 24-Apr-87 13:23:29 EST
Article-I.D.: epimass.1094
Posted: Fri Apr 24 13:23:29 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 25-Apr-87 19:45:21 EST
References: <1082@epimass.UUCP> <724@vu-vlsi.UUCP>
Reply-To: jbuck@epimass.UUCP (Joe Buck)
Organization: Entropic Processing, Inc., Cupertino, CA
Lines: 40
Keywords: VMS Rooted directories
Xref: mnetor comp.os.eunice:33 news.software.b:537

In article <1082@epimass.UUCP> jbuck@epimass.UUCP (Joe Buck) writes:
>>If you're a Eunice user, and you keep your news in /usr/spool/news,
>>you can't have five-part newsgroups such as comp.sys.ibm.pc.digest
>>... This is because on VMS, the directory name would be 
>>
>>	DISK:[EUNICE.USR.SPOOL.NEWS.COMP.SYS.IBM.PC.DIGEST]
>>
>>and VMS only allows subdirectories to be eight levels deep.

In article <724@vu-vlsi.UUCP> perry@vu-vlsi.UUCP (Rick Perry) writes:
>   Perhaps you can get around this by defining a logical name for a
>directory such that the top level newsgroups will be the first level of
>sub-directory, e.g.
>
>$ assign/translation=conceal  _hsc000$dua0:[eunice.usr.spool.news.]  news
>(note:		 use physical ^^^ device name       	    need ^ that .)
>
>Then  news:[comp], news:[comp.sys], etc. would be the newsgroup locations,
>and you can then have groups up to 8 levels deep.  I'm not too familiar
>with the Eunice parts of the news software, but I presume that somehow
>SPOOLDIR could be defined using a NEWS: logical name like this (/news/ ?)

Unfortunately, Eunice can't deal with rooted logical names correctly
(well, at least it's a documented bug -- maybe it will be fixed in
the new version).  Eunice does a fairly complete job of emulating
4.1bsd, by the way; the #ifdefs for VMS in the code don't really
change that much.  They emulated the system calls and then used
roughly the same source code as Berkeley did for the utilities.  You
don't notice you're not on Unix (other than the different way
typeahead is done by the VMS terminal driver) until you hit an edge
(like trying to create a nineth-level directory).  

So what am I going to do about it?  Nothing!  Eunice news sites have
two options: define SPOOLDIR to be /spool/news or something like
that, or use an alias (comp.sys.ibm-pc.digest is probably best).


-- 
- Joe Buck    {hplabs,ihnp4,sun,ames}!oliveb!epimass!jbuck
	      seismo!epiwrl!epimass!jbuck