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From: gnu@hoptoad.UUCP
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: Missing lines from articles
Message-ID: <2265@hoptoad.uucp>
Date: Fri, 5-Jun-87 08:16:56 EDT
Article-I.D.: hoptoad.2265
Posted: Fri Jun  5 08:16:56 1987
Date-Received: Mon, 8-Jun-87 05:37:39 EDT
References: <255@catsim.UUCP>
Organization: Nebula Consultants in San Francisco
Lines: 28

In article <255@catsim.UUCP>, tony@catsim.UUCP (Tony Cratz) writes:
>                    It also seems that it is ALWAYS one line which is
> missing...

I got a copy of a message back by email after it had left my machine
via news paths, and noticed something funny.  The messages matched
exactly except that where an "Xref:" line existed on my disk, there
was an extra blank line in the copy I got from the outside world.

Aha!  I suspect that whatever software is snuffing "Xref:" lines
is not DELETING the line, but just EMPTYING it down to a newline.
Since in most cases the Xref: line is the last line of the header,
this just makes the message appear to be one line longer.  The local
news stats always show a few messages from me to ptsfa which are
exactly one line longer than their Lines: header.  Also, about half
the sites with line length problems reported are off by a single line
in all the bad articles.

Now if the Xref: line was somewhere in the middle of the
header...hmm...  have you ever noticed those messages where half the
header appears in the text of the message?  Hmm!

Anybody seen the spot(s) in the news software where the Xref: lines
get junked?  Can you look there again?
-- 
Copyright 1987 John Gilmore; you may redistribute only if your recipients may.
(This is an effort to bend Stargate to work with Usenet, not against it.)
{sun,ptsfa,lll-crg,ihnp4,ucbvax}!hoptoad!gnu	       gnu@ingres.berkeley.edu