sahayman@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Steve Hayman) (10/05/89)
Here on iuvax the highest numbered article is #53785 in soc.singles. A couple of other groups are over 40000. Has anyone thought through what problems we may have in a couple of years when the 5-digit active file article numbers start wrapping around? I am not an expert on news internals so this may not really be a problem. Steve
henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (10/06/89)
In article <27176@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> sahayman@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Steve Hayman) writes: >Has anyone thought through what problems we may have in a couple of >years when the 5-digit active file article numbers start wrapping around? C News uses however many digits are present in the active file; the setup stuff we ship uses 10 instead of 5. None of the news readers seems to care. I believe there has been some work along similar lines in recent B News patches, but I haven't kept track. Of course, 10 digits is long enough to overflow a 32-bit number. Shouldn't take more than another decade for soc.singles. :-) -- Nature is blind; Man is merely | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology shortsighted (and improving). | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu
mday@iconsys.UUCP (Matthew T. Day) (10/06/89)
From article <27176@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>, by sahayman@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Steve Hayman): > Has anyone thought through what problems we may have in a couple of > years when the 5-digit active file article numbers start wrapping around? That limit was extended to 7 digits with patch 18 to B News 2.11. -- +---------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Matthew T. Day, Sanyo/Icon International, Orem, UT (801) 225-6888 | | Unix System Programmer, ..!uunet!iconsys!mday (mday@iconsys.uu.net) | +---------------------------------------------------------------------+
mhw@wittsend.lbp.harris.com (Michael H. Warfield (Mike)) (10/06/89)
In article <27176@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> sahayman@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Steve Hayman) writes: >Has anyone thought through what problems we may have in a couple of >years when the 5-digit active file article numbers start wrapping around? Yeah, apparently. Patch 18 to B news 2.11 adds to more digits. Let's see now. With the current growth rate of USNET, plus the various duplicates and mangled message-ids and history files, two more orders of magnitude might get us through another year or two :-). Michael H. Warfield (The Mad Wizard) | gatech.edu!galbp!wittsend!mhw (404) 270-2123 / 270-2098 | mhw@wittsend.LBP.HARRIS.COM An optimist believes we live in the best of all possible worlds. A pessimist is sure of it!
greg@cheers.uucp (Greg Onufer) (10/07/89)
sahayman@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Steve Hayman) writes: >Has anyone thought through what problems we may have in a couple of >years when the 5-digit active file article numbers start wrapping around? It wraps around and your newsreaders have to sort it out... or you upgrade to News 3 which uses 9 digits in the active file... and then try to wrap *that* around :-) Cheers!greg