Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!necntc!mirror!rayssd!ukma!david From: david@ms.uky.edu (David Herron -- One of the vertebrae) Newsgroups: news.admin Subject: newsgroup pattern matching Message-ID: <10197@s.ms.uky.edu> Date: 31 Aug 88 01:38:44 GMT Distribution: na Organization: U of Ky, Math. Sciences, Lexington KY Lines: 34 Argh. I really tried to understand how newsgroups are pattern matched against distributions but I just can't work it out. I'm trying to set up a redistribution of alt.sca into a mailing list. It worked for a long time then it broke again sometime in the last month and the last month has been hectic enough that I don't remember where or when it broke. The sys file entry looks like this: internet:ky,!ky.all,alt,!alt.all,alt.sca,!alt.sca.all,world,inet,\ ddn,!ddn.all,na,usa\ :S:/net/lib.news/gateway alt-sca redist-alt-sca redist-alt-sca-request e.ms.uky.edu I think I got the "alt,!alt.all,alt.sca,!alt.sca.all" group from Erik (or his gateway program). What I am seeing is that stuff with Distribution: alt do not go to redist-alt-sca, but ones without a Distribution: *do*. Now, ngmatch(alt.sca, alt.sca.all) won't match. (I'm not sure why, I'd think it should, but that's the way the code reads). And I can read in the code that the Newsgroups: alt.sca will match my sys file entry. Then the code goes on andd checks against the Distribution: line and does it in reverse (ngmatch(ng,dist) && (ngmatch(dist,ng)). That's when I got a headache and decided to quit. I can't find this documented but I do remember it being discussed somewhere. I just don't remember where. Nor did I save it away. -- <---- David Herron -- The E-Mail guy <---- ska: David le casse\*' {rutgers,uunet}!ukma!david, david@UKMA.BITNET <---- Problem: how to get people to call ...; Solution: Completely reconfigure <---- your mail system then leave for a weeks vacation when 90% done.