KEN%ORION.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu (Kenneth Ng) (10/22/87)
>From: Eric Gisin <egisin@orchid.waterloo.edu> > writes: >> iii. The checksums on the files are completely useless at the moment. >> This is probably due to the fact that lines over 80 characters >> are split up by most mailers, tab/space combinations go through >> numerous comversions, and heaven knows what else. The checksum >> test ALWAYS fails when I try to unSHAR my files. > >This is a problem with BITNET. >This is another reason for splitting comp.os.minix into discussion >and source groups; the source group could be uuencoded when redistributed >to bitnet. I don't think there is any need to moderate a minix source group. The problem is more than just BITNET. The problem is a mixture of buggy mailers, people who call the bugs 'features', and source and object code mailing programs that don't take into account the different bugs and different character sets of various system. While I may be flamed for this, I've found that the worst offenders are those college students that think the entire world is a VAX running 4.2 BSD. In the little spare time I have, I've been working on a program that I claim will be able to pass source and object code through most of the known mailers and gateways, at least the ones I can find. I'm restricting the coding to take into account various limitations of different mailers, different character sets, differences between object and source programs, etc. I've also got fields for local file definitions for those systems I don't have access to. I plan to add a compression algorithm based on a variant of the one used in 'compress', optional of course. From what I've seen its better than comress, and based on work by Wolgman (sp?). Unfortunately the talk of forests of pairs of trees has me a minimum of confused! Now the bad news: this program has been worked off and on for about a couple of months. This is because this program will not pay my rent, etc. Lastly, a plea for help: If you know of any bugs or 'features' of any mailer or versions of mailers that alter the text of the message, please send them to me. I can only design the program based on the bugs I know that are out there. Several months ago I sent out a similar request for known bugs of various mailers, I GOT BACK ONLY ONE RESPONSE TO DATE. And just from what I've seen, I count at least a dozen bugs and restrictions of various mailers. Kenneth Ng (ken@orion.bitnet) TEIES Project NJIT - CCCC Newark, New Jersey 07102
BECKER%HUMBER.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu (Bruce Becker) (10/24/87)
Uhhh... Ken - what's wrong with using uuencode/compress? Why reinvent the wheel? These tools are commonly available - do they not meet the need for BitNet transport? Cheers - BBecker Humber College Etobicoke, Ont.