[news.software.b] rn is being a very naughty lad

wisner@shadooby.cc.umich.edu (Bill Wisner) (03/13/89)

In my rn startup file is a very nifty regular expression that makes rn
print the subject, article length and author, nicely columnated, whenever
I type '='.

This regular expression has been following me around for many, many months
now. And rn has always gotten along with it quite nicely.

But now rn has decided that it doesn't want to play any more. After I've
been reading news for a short period of time, rn decides to spontaneously
combust after I have typed '='. It does so with a SIGIOT.

So far this has always happened while rn was scanning a message without a
Reply-To header. It has also only happened on the first unread message
of a newsgroup; this may or may not be irrelevant.

A not-terribly-comprehensive inspection of the situation with gdb suggests
that rn thinks there is a reply-to header present, but kicks off when it
tries to read that reply-to header and discovers that it is indeed not
there.

Has this bitten anyone else before? It would really be awfully nice to be
able to use my very favorite regular expression once again.

Shadooby is a Sun 3 with SunOS 3.4.

wisner@shadooby.cc.umich.edu (Bill Wisner) (03/16/89)

[ I really am a pinhead. I posted this as a followup without bothering
  to check where it was being posted. Here it is again, in the right place. ]

It has been pointed out (and quite rightly) that I should post the regular
expression that gives my rn indigestion so that people can give it a try,
make comments, whatever. Here it is. Lenny Tropiano may find it of interest,
too.

(First, I set RNINIT to ~/.rnrc; this goes in said file.)

-ESUBJLINE="\
%(%[subject]                                             \
=^\\(..............................................\\)?\
%1:%[subject]) \
(%(    %[lines]=\\(....\\)$?%1)) \
%(%(%f=(\\(.*[^ ].*\\))$?%1:%f)                   \
=^\\(...................\\)?%1)"

emv@sharkey.cc.umich.edu (Ed Vielmetti) (03/17/89)

Bill, check the size of various interp buffers.  I don't think
that Larry Wall ever envisioned that rn would have to cope with
names like 'starbarlounge.cc.umich.edu'.  (rn iot'd on my apollo
using that name, but worked on 'delrio.cc.umich.edu' -- go figure.)

--Ed