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Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!mit-eddie!genrad!panda!teddy!jpn
From: jpn@teddy.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sources.bugs
Subject: Re: RN 4.3 (patch level 43(?))
Message-ID: <4103@teddy.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 15-Jun-87 11:33:03 EDT
Article-I.D.: teddy.4103
Posted: Mon Jun 15 11:33:03 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 17-Jun-87 01:28:39 EDT
References: <952@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu> <1074@rayssd.RAY.COM>
Reply-To: jpn@teddy.UUCP (John P. Nelson)
Distribution: world
Organization: GenRad, Inc., Concord, Mass.
Lines: 17

>This is not an RN problem but a generic UNIX problem.  Any program which
>opens a file for output is subject to leaving a zero length file when the
>user goes over quota.  Either that or vi,ex,ed,emacs,cc (too name a few)
>all have the same identical bug that rn has!!

Sorry, "vi" and "ex" (at least on ULTRIX and SUN unixes) DETECT this
condition, and display an error, rather than silently truncating your
file and exiting.  This gives you the chance to suspend your edit
session, and clean up some files (or increase your quota) and attempt
to write the file again.

All programs should detect this condition, since it is logically equivalent
to the disk-full condition - which really CAN HAPPEN!  Any program that does
not detect this is just lazy, because it should always check the return
values from "write" and "close".  In Rn's case, if the NEW .newsrc cannot
be written, it should leave the OLD .newsrc intact, display an error, and
exit.