mp@whuxle.UUCP (Mark Plotnick) (02/28/84)
Some people were asking about how the active file gets duplicate lines. If an article comes in for a newsgroup that doesn't have a directory under the spooldir, the directory will be created by the mknewsg() routine in inews.c. As a free bonus, this routine also adds a line at the end of the active file, of the form "newsgroupname 00000", regardless of whether there's already a line for the newsgroup elsewhere in the file. This can lead to 2 (or more) lines for the same newsgroup in active. Mark
fair@dual.UUCP (Erik E. Fair) (03/01/84)
In fact, the effect that Mark Plotnik describes only happens when the
USENET software is compiled with the `AUTONEWNG' define turned on.
Otherwise, articles in unrecognized groups go in a newsgroup called
`junk' where they rot until expiration. Junk is one of a couple of
groups that you must explicitly ask for in your options line, if you
really want to read that kind of stuff.
Erik E. Fair
dual!fair@BERKELEY.ARPA
{ihnp4,ucbvax,cbosgd,decwrl,amd70,fortune,zehntel}!dual!fair
Dual Systems Corporation, Berkeley, California