Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!lsuc!ncrcan!ontenv!soley
From: soley@ontenv.UUCP (Norman S. Soley)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: Making /usr/lib/uucp/paths a _binary_ database
Keywords: pathalias UUCP smail
Message-ID: <334@ontenv.UUCP>
Date: 4 Jan 89 15:27:11 GMT
References: <486@fallst.UUCP> <318@mpx2.UUCP>
Organization: Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Toronto
Lines: 40

In article <318@mpx2.UUCP>, erik@mpx2.UUCP (Erik Murrey) writes:
> 
> I think that a lot of people have forgotten about a neat little
> program called "pathprune", posted a little while back.  It
> essentially strips out the un-needed paths from your pathalias output.
> 
> For instance, pathalias might produce these two paths for one of my
> neighbors:
> 
> .csee.lehigh.edu		lehi3b15!%s	500
> lehi3b15.csee.lehigh.edu	lehi3b15!%s	500
> 
> These two paths are redundant, and pathprune would remove the second.
> The resulting paths file, on my system, shrinks about 20-30%.

I have not seen this program but if you plan on putting it in make
sure first that it behaves properly, the elimination of the second
line in the example above is OK but consider the following example 
I cooked up:

My uucp neighbour is ncrcan, they also have a domain name
(ncrcan.toronto.ncr.com) but for the sake of arguement lets imagine
that there are no regional subdomains so it's actually ncrcan.ncr.com 
(lots of large orginzations are like that, AT&T for example) my paths 
file would look like: 

.ncr.com	ontmoh!mnetor!uunet!ncrlnk!%s	195
ncrcan.ncr.com	ncrcan!%s	195

If I just blindly strip out the second line without comparing the
second fields for an exact match first then any mail I send to 
user@ncrcan.ncr.com gets sent all the way to Dayton then back to 
Toronto again, hardly a good idea, especially considering that someone
else is footing the bill for that little trip to Ohio. Sure I can mail 
to ncrcan!user but this usually requires manual intervention.
-- 
Norman Soley - Data Communications Analyst - Ontario Ministry of the Environment
UUCP:	uunet!attcan!lsuc!ncrcan!ontenv!soley	VOICE:	+1 416 323 2623
OR:     soley@ontenv.UUCP 
  " Stay smart, go cool, be happy, it's the only way to get what you want"