rdc30med@nmrdc1.nmrdc.nnmc.navy.mil (LCDR Michael E. Dobson) (09/12/90)
Yesterday I applied the two patches to Cnews to bring it up to the 7-Sep-90 version and installed it. THe first time relaynews fired up to process the incoming batches, all batches were placed in "bad" and the following error message showed up in errlog "relaynews: whitespace in system name (or exclusions) for sys file entry ` '". To correct the problem and get the batches processed I had to remove the blank lines in the sys file. I thought blank lines were ignored in the sys file. The prototype sys file has them. Has anyone else seen this behavior? -- Mike Dobson, Sys Admin for | Internet: rdc30med@nmrdc1.nmrdc.nnmc.navy.mil nmrdc1.nmrdc.nnmc.navy.mil | UUCP: ...uunet!mimsy!nmrdc1!rdc30med AT&T 3B2/600G Sys V R 3.2.2 | BITNET: dobson@usuhsb.bitnet WIN/TCP for 3B2 | MCI-Mail: 377-2719 or 0003772719@mcimail.com
geoff@athena.mit.edu (Geoff Collyer) (09/13/90)
relaynews does ignore blank lines in the sys file (i.e. two newlines in a row). It does not ignore lines consisting solely of spaces or tabs. Geoff Collyer, utstat!geoff
henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) (09/13/90)
In article <1990Sep12.151805.4334@nmrdc1.nmrdc.nnmc.navy.mil> rdc30med@nmrdc1.nmrdc.nnmc.navy.mil (LCDR Michael E. Dobson) writes: >... in errlog "relaynews: whitespace in system name (or >exclusions) for sys file entry ` '". To correct the problem and get the batches >processed I had to remove the blank lines in the sys file. > >I thought blank lines were ignored in the sys file. The prototype sys file >has them. Has anyone else seen this behavior? I think the problem here is an ambiguity of wording: *empty* lines are ignored, but the ones you've got were not empty -- they contained one space character each. This may be the result of getting your distribution via some data-mangling network like Bitnet that does not preserve empty lines. (Some operating systems are incapable of storing a truly empty line -- there must be at least one character in each line in their files.) The prototype sys file, as shipped, has really empty lines. C News has been misinterpreting those non-empty blank lines all along, probably (!), but only now has it started complaining. The Sept 1 patch added checking for inappropriate white space in sys lines, because C News is fairly intolerant of random white space in there and people were being tripped up by this. -- TCP/IP: handling tomorrow's loads today| Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology OSI: handling yesterday's loads someday| henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry
rdc30med@nmrdc1.nmrdc.nnmc.navy.mil (LCDR Michael E. Dobson) (09/13/90)
In article <1990Sep12.222603.22914@zoo.toronto.edu> henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: >In article <1990Sep12.151805.4334@nmrdc1.nmrdc.nnmc.navy.mil> rdc30med@nmrdc1.nmrdc.nnmc.navy.mil (LCDR Michael E. Dobson) writes: >>... in errlog "relaynews: whitespace in system name (or >>exclusions) for sys file entry ` '". To correct the problem and get the batches >>processed I had to remove the blank lines in the sys file. >> >>I thought blank lines were ignored in the sys file. The prototype sys file >>has them. Has anyone else seen this behavior? > >I think the problem here is an ambiguity of wording: *empty* lines are >ignored, but the ones you've got were not empty -- they contained one >space character each. This may be the result of getting your distribution >via some data-mangling network like Bitnet that does not preserve empty >lines. (Some operating systems are incapable of storing a truly empty >line -- there must be at least one character in each line in their files.) >The prototype sys file, as shipped, has really empty lines. > Hmmm, I ftp'd my original cnews.Z from your site (25-May-90) then applied the two patches. >C News has been misinterpreting those non-empty blank lines all along, >probably (!), but only now has it started complaining. The Sept 1 patch >added checking for inappropriate white space in sys lines, because C News >is fairly intolerant of random white space in there and people were being >tripped up by this. Could be what happened since the sys file hadn't changed between the 25-May-90 version I installed originally and the 7-Sep-90 version I brought up this week. I can try putting the *empty* lines back in for readability. How about TABS at the beginning of continuation lines? (None of the errors logged included a system name). -- Mike Dobson, Sys Admin for | Internet: rdc30med@nmrdc1.nmrdc.nnmc.navy.mil nmrdc1.nmrdc.nnmc.navy.mil | UUCP: ...uunet!mimsy!nmrdc1!rdc30med AT&T 3B2/600G Sys V R 3.2.2 | BITNET: dobson@usuhsb.bitnet WIN/TCP for 3B2 | MCI-Mail: 377-2719 or 0003772719@mcimail.com
henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) (09/14/90)
In article <1990Sep13.165647.819@nmrdc1.nmrdc.nnmc.navy.mil> rdc30med@nmrdc1.nmrdc.nnmc.navy.mil (LCDR Michael E. Dobson) writes: >>The prototype sys file, as shipped, has really empty lines. >> >Hmmm, I ftp'd my original cnews.Z from your site (25-May-90) then applied the >two patches. Hm. Bug in your sed, perhaps? I just checked; the distribution copy (well, the current one) really does have empty lines in it. >I can try putting the *empty* lines back in for readability. How about >TABS at the beginning of continuation lines? (None of the errors logged included >a system name). Well, actually they did include a system name -- one blank space! -- which was the final clue to what was going on. As for space at the start of continuation lines, yes, this is supported -- see news(5) for details of what is and isn't okay. -- TCP/IP: handling tomorrow's loads today| Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology OSI: handling yesterday's loads someday| henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry