Path: utzoo!yunexus!geac!syntron!jtsv16!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!amdcad!ames!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!fluke!battan
From: battan@tc.fluke.COM (Jim Battan)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: bugfix for inews (control messages cause coredump)
Keywords: inews control coredump
Message-ID: <5686@fluke.COM>
Date: 25 Oct 88 16:27:05 GMT
Article-I.D.: fluke.5686
Sender: news@tc.fluke.COM
Organization: John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc., Everett, WA
Lines: 34

Recently, I've noticed core dumps being left by inews.  I ran it through
dbx, and traced it down to being caused by control messages.  In control.c,
the code for c_cancel() runs through all newsgroups the article was posted to,
removing the files.  However, once in a blue moon it runs off the end of the
string in the history file and indirects through memory location 1, causing
a segmentation violation on our Sun.  I have no idea why I haven't seen
this before; it looks like it should always produce the core dump, but
I only have seen it recently.  Anyway, here's a patch.

Disclaimer:  This works for me; your mileage may vary.

Index: control.c
*** /tmp/,RCSt1a07965   Tue Oct 25 08:43:59 1988
--- control.c   Thu Oct 20 12:03:12 1988
***************
*** 704,708
  
                (void) unlink(nfilename);
!               p = q+1;
        }
  #endif /* !NFSCLIENT */

--- 704,711 -----
  
                (void) unlink(nfilename);
!               if (q == NULL)
!                   break;
!               else
!                   p = q+1;
        }
  #endif /* !NFSCLIENT */
-- 
Jim Battan  (+1 206 356 6469)
battan@tc.fluke.COM  ||  {sun,uw-beaver,decvax!microsoft}!fluke!battan