earle@jplopto.uucp (Greg Earle) (12/30/87)
A couple of quick notes on the new `vn' distribution:
(1) If you do not define `tmpnam.o' in the Makefile's EXTRAOBJS *on* *a* *Sun*,
you will be sorry. It appears that Sun's implementation of the `tmpnam'
function is broken. There should probably be a mention of this in the
Makefile comments in later releases (as there is for Ultrix). Using Bob's
version works fine.
(2) Undigestify is broken. Typing `R' to read all digest articles, then
reading them sequentially eventually yields a SIGSEGV. Bob is aware
of the problem and has a fix. Works fine with the fix.
(3) Vanilla `vn' scrolls for each successive page for > 1 page articles.
On low-speed modem links, or on Sun monitors (inside a window system
or using the raw console), this is a Big Lose (I can't speak for other
systems using bit-mapped monitors & window systems). I submitted patches
that enables repainting from the top of the screen for successive pages,
if the environment variable MORE is set to `-c'. This emulates more(1)
in this regard. The same patches also keep the last line of the previous
screen as the first line of the current screen (as does the default
scrolling behavior), in reverse video if possible (a la rn).
Now if we could only get articles left marked unread between sessions ...
Fixes should be forthcoming for the above; don't write me - wait for Bob to
release an update (I'm feeding all our fixes to him instead of posting them).
Greg Earle earle@jplopto.JPL.NASA.GOV
Indep. Sun consultant earle%jplopto@jpl-elroy.ARPA [aka:]
Rockwell Science Center earle%jplopto@elroy.JPL.NASA.GOV
Thousand Oaks, CA ...!cit-vax!elroy!smeagol!jplopto!earlebobm@rtech.UUCP (Bob McQueer) (01/01/88)
Problem list at this point:
1) the digest handling stuff Greg mentioned. There are a couple
things to be fixed here, the more serious being one of those
address problems that VAXen blithely ignore. I hope it's the
only such.
2) for SYSV, there is no mkdir() call and MAXPATHLEN is undefined
in svart.c. Needs to be ifdef'ed to call mknod(), which will
mean that the feature will only work for superuser on SYSV, if
the manual pages are to be believed (the feature in question is
the placement of saved articles in separate directories if there
is a "%s" in your VNSAVE variable).
3) somebody whom I never got confirmation from had a problem with
a "range error" message getting generated, which I believe would
happen if there happened to be multiple records for a given
newsgroup in the active file. Can be changed to generate a
non-fatal and more informative message, although obviously
your active file is screwed up and should be fixed.
4) if a badly mangled article gets into the directories, you'll
get a crash if you try to read it. By badly mangled, I mean
a "From", "Path" and "Reply-to" line are all not present. Until
I give out a fix, don't read an article from author "?". The
specific problem is in winding up calling mail_trim() in std.c
with a NULL pointer. The fix is a one-liner - simply check &
don't call it. I found this myself shortly after posting - the
offending article was the first time I'd seen a screwed up article
in ages.
5) if you try to set your NEWSRC variable to a file which is on a
different filesystem than your HOME, it won't work. The reason
is that vn plays super-cautious when writing your .newsrc by
making a link of your old .newsrc to a temporary name in case
the write fails, and it's making the temp name in your HOME.
It's a minor mod to make sure the temp name is in the same
directory as your .newsrc.
I intend to post a single set of patches for all of the above. None of them
are very extensive changes. I'll wait about a week to see if there is any
further fallout. I'll either post Greg's optimization with it, or as a
separate patch.