filbo@gorn.santa-cruz.ca.us (Bela Lubkin) (10/01/89)
I have been working on some patches to rrn. The base version of rrn that I'm
working from claims to be rn patchlevel 40, with the rrn patches applied to it.
What is rn patch 40? All the ftp sites seem to have rn patchlevel 39. I
grabbed ucbvax:/pub/rrn.39.tar.Z; the local version differs only slightly, in
files common.h, rcln.c and respond.c. At the end of this message are shortened
diffs of those three files, local copy vs. ucbvax patchlevel 39 sources.
Would someone please confirm that the changes represent patchlevel 40 and that
it's a valid patch...
The patches I'm working on improve rrn's use of NNTP, improving both user
speed and network bandwidth requirements. I would like to know how to
dispose of them when they are complete -- send to comp.sources.unix, Larry
Wall, whoever the current Keeper of NNTP is, or what? Someone please mail
me some guidance on this.
Also, this rrn suffers from an annoying bug, which I seem to remember
seeing mention of a patch for, but cannot find anything about: When joining
a new group, if there is an ancient (Expires:) message followed by a large
number of expired messages, rrn will catch up the entire group rather than
finding the first existing article. We had another rrn version, unfortunately
sans source, that did not do this. Watching the NNTP stream, it appears to
be giving up after several HEADs fail consecutively. Is there a patch for
this? Where can I find patches, if any, later than the original rn->rrn
diffs?
Thanks in advance. Diffs of ucbvax:39 vs. local:40 follow...
In common.h, all occurences of ".UUCP" were removed;
In rcln.c,
***
! *(rcline[ngnum] + rcnums[ngnum] - 1) = rcchar[ngnum];
---
! {
! char c = rcchar[ngnum];
! *(rcline[ngnum] + rcnums[ngnum] - 1) = c;
! }
In respond.c,
***
if (chdir(spool)) {
! #else not SERVER
if (chdir(spool) || chdir(ngdir)) {
- #endif SERVER
printf(nocd,ngdir) FLUSH;
---
if (chdir(spool)) {
! printf(nocd,spool) FLUSH;
! #else
if (chdir(spool) || chdir(ngdir)) {
printf(nocd,ngdir) FLUSH;
+ #endif /* !SERVER */
***
if (chdir(spool)) {
! #else not SERVER
if (chdir(spool) || chdir(ngdir)) {
- #endif SERVER
printf(nocd,ngdir) FLUSH;
---
if (chdir(spool)) {
! printf(nocd,spool) FLUSH;
! #else
if (chdir(spool) || chdir(ngdir)) {
printf(nocd,ngdir) FLUSH;
+ #endif /* !SERVER */
Bela Lubkin * * filbo@gorn.santa-cruz.ca.us CIS: 73047,1112
@ * * ...ucbvax!ucscc!gorn!filbo ^^^ REALLY slow [months]
R Pentomino * Filbo @ Pyrzqxgl (408) 476-4633 & XBBS (408) 476-4945filbo@gorn.santa-cruz.ca.us (Bela Lubkin) (10/09/89)
In article <47.filbo@gorn.santa-cruz.ca.us> I wrote: >I have been working on some patches to rrn. The base version of rrn that I'm >working from claims to be rn patchlevel 40, with the rrn patches applied to it. >What is rn patch 40? All the ftp sites seem to have rn patchlevel 39. [...] I received exactly one reply on this, pointing me to decwrl, jpl-devvax and one other site, to get PL 41. So far so good... >The patches I'm working on improve rrn's use of NNTP, improving both user >speed and network bandwidth requirements. I would like to know how to >dispose of them when they are complete -- send to comp.sources.unix, Larry >Wall, whoever the current Keeper of NNTP is, or what? Someone please mail >me some guidance on this. Apparently NOBODY has anything to say on this. Is rrn considered completely dead in light of nn? Does nobody care about local net bandwidth? How about the occasional >remote< rrn user? >[I thought I heard of a patch for this, but can't find it: if you join a >group which has a large gap between a single "Expires" article and the next >real article, rrn skips the entire group. We had an rrn that didn't do >this, but the source was lost. The NNTP stream makes it seem that rrn tries >several HEAD commands and gives up when they fail. WHERE can I find a patch >for this, or any other patches to the original rn->rrn diffs?] Nothing at all on this, either. Would one of the news "gurus" at least mail me that they >DON'T< know so that I can give up gracefully? Bela Lubkin * * filbo@gorn.santa-cruz.ca.us CIS: 73047,1112 @ * * ...ucbvax!ucscc!gorn!filbo ^^^ REALLY slow [months] R Pentomino * Filbo @ Pyrzqxgl (408) 476-4633 & XBBS (408) 476-4945
brian@ucsd.Edu (Brian Kantor) (10/09/89)
The author of 'rn', Larry Wall, has publicly stated that he isn't going to do any more work on 'rn'. Rather, he is (in his limited free time) in the process of writing a new news reader. Perl grew out of that effort. My guess is when/if this new newsreader is available, it'll blow all the others out of the water. In the meantime, I know of no one collecting patches or taking maintenance responsibility for 'rn'. It is essentially a mature product with a few minor bugs. Or maybe you can consider it an orphan, if that makes you feel better. I suspect that if you were to publish bugfixes in comp.sources.bugs, or put them out somewhere for FTP retrieval, people would be grateful. But I doubt you'll ever see any more official patches for 'rn'. - Brian
jw@pan.UUCP (Jamie Watson) (10/10/89)
>I received exactly one reply on this, pointing me to decwrl, jpl-devvax and one >other site, to get PL 41. So far so good... Hmmm. I just checked, and I have rn at patchlevel 40. I don't recall seeing a patch 41; was there one posted that I missed? If so, does anyone (preferably in Europe) have a copy of it that they could send me? Thanks, jw