[news.software.b] Expire updating active minart

jerry@olivey.olivetti.com (Jerry Aguirre) (01/05/90)

I have been looking (unwillingly) at the code in expire that builds the
min and max article numbers for the active file.  I don't understand why,
in the default case where it uses the history file, it needs to later go
out and scan the spool directories to find the lowest numbered article.
It just finished processing every article the history knows about.

Would it not be greatly more efficient to keep track of the lowest
numbered article that was processed and not expired?  We are only
talking about storage for the name and a single long for each group.

Also, if rnews can update the maxart in place, why can't expire
update the minart in place and avoid locking out rnews?  There is, of
course, no reason to update the maxart in the normal case.  Rnews is
maintaining that already.

				Jerry