Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!lsuc!ecicrl!clewis
From: clewis@ecicrl.UUCP (Chris Lewis)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: bugfix for inews (control messages cause coredump)
Keywords: inews control coredump
Message-ID: <131@ecicrl.UUCP>
Date: 5 Nov 88 16:40:52 GMT
References: <5686@fluke.COM>
Reply-To: clewis@ecicrl.UUCP (Chris Lewis)
Organization: Elegant Communications Inc. (CRL Division)
Lines: 63

In article <5686@fluke.COM> battan@tc.fluke.COM (Jim Battan) writes:
>Recently, I've noticed core dumps being left by inews.

Other symptom - .ina and .ar(?) files left around.  I used to get this
on a spectrix machine (68020 with location zero readable - usually -
a bug caused really large programs like Oracle to not be able to get at
zero - not sure whether inews qualifies).  Now I'm on a 3b1 (3.5.1.4) and
haven't seen this occur yet (haven't been subscribed to comp.mail.maps
long enough for a map supercede to actually delete something).

>Index: control.c
>                (void) unlink(nfilename);
>!               if (q == NULL)
>!                   break;
>!               else
>!                   p = q+1;
>        }
>  #endif /* !NFSCLIENT */

Interestingly enough, when I went to install this patch, I found:

		(void) unlink(nfilename);
		if (!q)
			break;
		else
			p = q + 1;

Hmm.  Looks the same to me.  Mod date Feb 15, 1988.  I'm now running
on a 3b1 (3.5.1.4) and haven't seen the bug crop up yet (and I'm not
even sure at the moment whether this news software is the same as
what was running on the Spectrix).

Evidently, someone posted this bug fix back in February (it might have
been me, but I don't think so - I only remember posting a bug fix for 
headers having tab separators after the colon - as C-news will sometimes
generate)

Every once in a while someone uncovers another bug in B-news and sometimes
we get a flurry of unofficial patches some of which work, and some don't.
It appears that Rick Adams isn't going to be posting any more official
patches because of the nearness of C news or News 3.0.

I think it's fair to say that many people would like to keep running
B-news 2.11 until official release of C news or News 3.0 (this may already
have been done - I've been off the net for a while) occur and perhaps
beyond then.  And, that new functionality isn't appropriate.  And,
that many people miss (or vaguely mistrust) patches that don't come
from Rick Adams.  

Rick, it would be a great service if you could 

	- give us at least a description (if not patch input) for any 
	  bug fixes that you've seen going by that *would* have gone into 
	  a patch 15 if you were to send one?  Eg: a "maintenance-only"
	  patch.
	- sanction in some fashion any new bugfixes going by?

Thanks,
-- 
Chris Lewis
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