[net.news.sa] Serious bug in /usr/lib/news/expire

stephen@dcl-cs.UUCP (Stephen J. Muir) (05/31/85)

There is a *SERIOUS* bug in the "expire" program.  Whether you specify the "-u"
option or not, the "active" newsgroup file is ALWAYS updated.  I suppose this
is what's supposed to happen, but, it always sets the "minimum article number"
to be equal to the "maximum article number".  This has the effect that, if
expire is run before any user reads his/her news, they will only see the last
article although the others haven't been expired.  I think that expire SHOULD
set the "minimum article number" to correspond to the lowest numbered file
remaining in the appropriate spool sub-directory (unless it was already less
than that number - the system is, I think, designed to wrap-round).
-- 
NAME:	Stephen J. Muir			Project:Alvey ECLIPSE Distribution
JANET:	stephen@uk.ac.lancs.comp	DARPA:	stephen%lancs.comp@ucl-cs
UUCP:	...!ukc!icdoc!dcl-cs!stephen	PHONE:	+44 524 65201 Ext. 4599
POST:	Department of Computing, University of Lancaster, Bailrigg, Lancaster.
	LA1 4YR

greg@ncr-tp.UUCP (Greg Noel) (06/05/85)

In article <171@dcl-cs.UUCP> stephen@dcl-cs.UUCP (Stephen J. Muir) writes:
>....  I think that expire SHOULD
>set the "minimum article number" to correspond to the lowest numbered file
>remaining in the appropriate spool sub-directory ....

It does -- at least, it is supposed to.  You don't say which flavor of
operating system has this problem, but I found a bug that causes these
symptoms to occur on a Pyramid running in the ATT universe.  (It has
to do with the fact that the directories in the ATT universe aren't
exactly as the System V documentation specifies.  Normally, what you
get is close enough, but in this case, it wasn't.)  I sent the fix to
rick@seismo.arpa so there's hope that it will be fixed in 2.10.3, but
in the meantime if you think it might be relevant, contact me and I
will send you the fix.
-- 
-- Greg Noel, NCR Torrey Pines       Greg@ncr-tp.UUCP or Greg@nosc.ARPA

stephen@dcl-cs.UUCP (Stephen J. Muir) (06/06/85)

I have now been informed of the fix for this bug by "jsp@icdoc.UUCP"
and it is as follows:

Go to the news source directory and erase "ndir.o", "expire.o" and "expire".
Then remake and install - seems the bug was due to the Makefile not checking
dependencies properly.

"roy@phri.UUCP" has also noticed this bug and has sent me a program
to rebuild the active file - this is, I feel, now redundant.
-- 
NAME:	Stephen J. Muir			Project:Alvey ECLIPSE Distribution
JANET:	stephen@uk.ac.lancs.comp	DARPA:	stephen%lancs.comp@ucl-cs
UUCP:	...!ukc!icdoc!dcl-cs!stephen	PHONE:	+44 524 65201 Ext. 4599
POST:	Department of Computing, University of Lancaster, Bailrigg, Lancaster.
	LA1 4YR