ingoldsb@ctycal.UUCP (Terry Ingoldsby) (10/19/89)
I am no expert at the netnews software, but I have a problem that I
haven't figured out at first glance and was hoping someone could
steer me to the answer *without* my having to become familiar with
the netnews source code.
My problem is with readnews. Normally, invoking `readnews' should
cause all the newsgroups that are enabled in the user's .newsrc file
to be read. My readnews does not do this. It processes only the
groups specified in the mandatory subscription list ADMSUB. (At
least I think that is what it is doing). What is it that I don't
understand? Doing a readnews -n comp or whatever does work.
If it matters, I am running news on an Intergraph Clipper w/s
(System V 3.1).
Thanks for any help.
--
Terry Ingoldsby ctycal!ingoldsb@calgary.UUCP
Land Information Systems or
The City of Calgary ...{alberta,ubc-cs,utai}!calgary!ctycal!ingoldsbambar@ora.UUCP (Jean Marie Diaz) (10/20/89)
In article <491@ctycal.UUCP> ingoldsb@ctycal.UUCP (Terry Ingoldsby) writes: >My problem is with readnews. Normally, invoking `readnews' should >cause all the newsgroups that are enabled in the user's .newsrc file >to be read. My readnews does not do this. It processes only the >groups specified in the mandatory subscription list ADMSUB. (At >least I think that is what it is doing). What is it that I don't >understand? Doing a readnews -n comp or whatever does work. Actually, as readnews (vnews too) is implemented in B News 2.11, you must call it with the -n all switch for it to read all the newsgroups enabled in .newsrc. I really dislike this behavior. Last I checked, it has been changed in B News 3.0 (TMNN). AMBAR ambar@ora.com uunet!ora!ambar
jonathan@cs.keele.ac.uk (Jonathan Knight) (10/21/89)
From article <164@ora.UUCP>, by ambar@ora.UUCP (Jean Marie Diaz): > In article <491@ctycal.UUCP> ingoldsb@ctycal.UUCP (Terry Ingoldsby) writes: > >>My problem is with readnews. My readnews does not do this. >>It processes only the groups specified in the mandatory >>subscription list ADMSUB. > > Actually, as readnews (vnews too) is implemented in B News 2.11, you > must call it with the -n all switch for it to read all the > newsgroups enabled in .newsrc. Arrgghh. 1) Would Jean Marie Diaz go read the documentation for news. It says that you should email replies to the questioner unless it is of netwide importance. This isn't! It's the sort of thing that people can find from their news admins or 'man newsrc'. 2) YOU'RE WRONG. Go type 'man newsrc' and read what it says. Then put your 'options' line in your .newsrc file. I don't object to Terry Ingoldsby asking questions that are in the manual pages (although that is the most obvious place to look). What I do object to is people posting followups to questions that are in the manual pages AND GETTING IT WRONG. That means that everyone who knows your wrong will have to followup your followup in order to stop your misinformation. P.S. I've already emailed Terry and explained what he needed to do, with examples to help and a list of programs which would start behaving properly. Now I shall sit back and watch another 30 people followup all this. -- ______ JANET :jonathan@uk.ac.keele.cs Jonathan Knight, / BITNET:jonathan%cs.kl.ac.uk@ukacrl Department of Computer Science / _ __ other :jonathan@cs.keele.ac.uk University of Keele, Keele, (_/ (_) / / UUCP :...!ukc!kl-cs!jonathan Staffordshire. ST5 5BG. U.K.
ambar@bloom-beacon.mit.edu (Jean Marie Diaz) (10/22/89)
2) YOU'RE WRONG. Go type 'man newsrc' and read what it says. Then put
your 'options' line in your .newsrc file.
I did not err in anything I said. I merely omitted mentioning the
'options' line in the .newsrc, for good reason.
I think that it is a bad idea, and refuse to suggest to people that they
use it. The problem is that .newsrc's are not only read by B News 2.11
vnews and readnews --- they are also read by vn, nn, GNUS, Gnews, and
rn. (To name a few.) Putting 'options' lines in the .newsrc requires
all authors of other newsreaders to either skip those lines, or try to
translate them appropriately. Ick.
IMHO, the first design error was in not simply walking through all
subscribed newsgroups in the .newsrc (in the absence of other -n
options). Putting 'options' lines in the .newsrc merely compounded the
error, by assuming that no other (incompatible) newsreaders would ever
be written. The right thing would be a .vnewsinit or suchlike.
(In case it's not obvious, this is not intended to be a flame at Rick
Adams or any other authors of news software. After spending 30-odd
hours this week documenting both B News 2.11 and C News, I think it's
safe to say that I have some appreciation of the work involved.)
AMBAR
ambar@bloom-beacon.mit.edu {mit-eddie,uunet}!bloom-beacon!ambar