[news.software.b] C news aliases in the active file

jeff@cjsa.wa.com (Jeffery Small) (01/29/91)

Having recently aliased the old "unix-pc.general" newsgroup to the
new "comp.sys.3b1" group, I discovered a little problem which must have
existed for some time.

If someone crossposts an article to both of these groups, then C news
generates two copies of the article in "comp.sys.3b1".  Both copies have
the same message ID and in fact, the files are identical in the spool
directory.

Is there a clean and simple way to eliminate the duplication of these
articles?

Thanks for any help you can offer.
--
Jeff Small                     C. Jeffery Small & Associates    (206) 232-3338
uunet!nwnexus!cjsa!jeff        7000 E Mercer Way,  Mercer Island, WA     98040

henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) (01/30/91)

In article <1991Jan28.170455.18630@cjsa.wa.com> jeff@cjsa.wa.com (Jeffery Small) writes:
>If someone crossposts an article to both of these groups, then C news
>generates two copies of the article in "comp.sys.3b1".  Both copies have
>the same message ID and in fact, the files are identical in the spool
>directory.

In fact, if you look carefully, you will find that they are, in fact,
two links to the same file.

>Is there a clean and simple way to eliminate the duplication of these
>articles?

Nothing off-the-shelf.  A newsreader that respects the Xref header line
will only show you one of them anyway.  It's a peculiar quirk, but
relatively awkward to fix, and it didn't seem worthwhile.  It's not eating
up any extra disk space (except to the small extent that directory entries
consume disk space).
-- 
If the Space Shuttle was the answer,   | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
what was the question?                 |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry

dave@dms3b1.uucp (Dave Hanna) (02/04/91)

In article <1991Jan29.205226.7456@zoo.toronto.edu> henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:
|In article <1991Jan28.170455.18630@cjsa.wa.com> jeff@cjsa.wa.com (Jeffery Small) writes:
|>If someone crossposts an article to both of these groups, then C news
|>generates two copies of the article in "comp.sys.3b1".  Both copies have
|>the same message ID and in fact, the files are identical in the spool
|>directory.
|
|In fact, if you look carefully, you will find that they are, in fact,
|two links to the same file.
|
|>Is there a clean and simple way to eliminate the duplication of these
|>articles?
|
|Nothing off-the-shelf.  A newsreader that respects the Xref header line
|will only show you one of them anyway.  

At least at this site, that is not so.  I'm running rn at patch level 47,
(on a AT&T 3b1, Sys V)
and it does seem to be properly handling normal cross-posted articles,
(i.e., an article cross-posted in misc.forsale and misc.forsale.computers,
when read in misc.forsale, was not shown to me in misc.forsale.computers),
but it is definitely showing both copies of articles cross-posted in 
unix-pc.general and comp.sys.3b1.

Can anyone validate Henry's statement, or do I have a configuration 
problem in my version of rn?  How about anyone with other newsreaders?
>If the Space Shuttle was the answer,   | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology


-- 
Dave Hanna,  Infotouch Systems, Inc. |  "Do or do not -- There is no try"
P.O. Box 584, Bedford, TX 76095      |                        - Yoda
(214) 358-4534   (817) 540-1524      |
UUCP:  ...!letni!dms3b1!dave         |

bruce@balilly.UUCP (Bruce Lilly) (02/05/91)

In article <1991Feb3.172937.7131@dms3b1.uucp> dave@dms3b1.UUCP (Dave Hanna) writes:
>In article <1991Jan29.205226.7456@zoo.toronto.edu> henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:
>|In article <1991Jan28.170455.18630@cjsa.wa.com> jeff@cjsa.wa.com (Jeffery Small) writes:
>|>If someone crossposts an article to both of these groups, then C news
>|>generates two copies of the article in "comp.sys.3b1".  Both copies have
>|>the same message ID and in fact, the files are identical in the spool
>|>directory.
>|
>|In fact, if you look carefully, you will find that they are, in fact,
>|two links to the same file.
>|
>|>Is there a clean and simple way to eliminate the duplication of these
>|>articles?
>|
>|Nothing off-the-shelf.  A newsreader that respects the Xref header line
>|will only show you one of them anyway.  
>
>At least at this site, that is not so.  I'm running rn at patch level 47,
>(on a AT&T 3b1, Sys V)

Same configuration here.

>and it does seem to be properly handling normal cross-posted articles,
>(i.e., an article cross-posted in misc.forsale and misc.forsale.computers,
>when read in misc.forsale, was not shown to me in misc.forsale.computers),
>but it is definitely showing both copies of articles cross-posted in 
>unix-pc.general and comp.sys.3b1.

Use the 'v' command in rn to look at the headers. If there's no Xref:
line, something's wrong.  Also double-check the Newsgroups: line -- some
broken news posting software has been known to generate separate copies of
the posted article to each newsgroup.

>Can anyone validate Henry's statement, or do I have a configuration 
>problem in my version of rn?

There are/were some patches dealing with Xref's (I think the patches were
to C news).

--
	Bruce Lilly		blilly!balilly!bruce@sonyd1.Broadcast.Sony.COM