[comp.sys.next] Digital Librarian under 2.0

buc@jessica.stanford.edu (Robert Richards) (04/11/91)

After updating to 2.0 on a 030 cube the Digital Librarian dies on some
of the directories I attempt to index.  Certain files will ruin the
indexing process.  The same directories would index fine under 1.0.

The symptoms are;

	When a problem file is encountered, indexing will hang and
	then die.
	
	After this using the "Update Index" button will act as though
	it worked but return quickly.

	The folder in the DL is considered unindexed.

Anyone know of any reported bugswith the DL?  Are there patches?  Is
it improved in 2.1?

Thanks.

===============================================================================
        Rob Richards				
        Supercomputer & Workstation Support Staff
        AIR					
	Stanford University

Psychologist B.F. Skinner said ``Education is what survives when what
has been learnt has been forgotten.''
===============================================================================

das15@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Douglas A Scott) (04/13/91)

I thought I might summarize the workarounds I have been taught or have
learned for getting indexing to work in Librarian under 2.0.  I should
add that I am using 2.1 now, and am not exactly sure whether anything
was actually fixed in Librarian in 2.1 (the general concensus is no).

First problem: Indexing dies somewhere before finishing.
There are at least two different problems here, actually.  ixBuild
seems unable to follow linked directories, first of all.  Secondly, it
will often die if it runs across empty (zero size) files among those
being indexed (this seems not to happen under 2.1 though).  Thirdly,
ixBuild sometimes just goes nuts and starts indexing your home
directory (yes, go in and look for a .index dir in your home dir)
rather than the correct one.

Solutions:
1) Make sure that the dir and all subdirs you wish to index are
read/searchable by all.  Files must be readable.

2) Make sure that if there is already a .index dir there (from earlier tries
or OS versions) that it is set read/write/search for all ("chmod 777 .index").

3) If it still doesnt work, make sure there are no empty files being indexed.

4) Last step is to hardwire the arguments that get passed to ixBuild by DL:
	a) create a file in the .index dir called "ixBuildOptions".
	b) put the following line in it:

-F -V [full_path_name_of_dir_to_index]

for example, "-F -V /LocalLibrary/Literature/Bible"

	c) remove the index.ixif file that is there, and
	
	d) go back and try to index again.

Regarding updating of indices that have already been made:
Under 2.0 I was never able to do this, as far as I can remember.  Under 2.1,
at least after taking the above measures into consideration, I has no trouble
updating a very large index (a year of comp.sys.next!)--much to my delight.

I hope this is all of help to some people...wish I has known it all when I
started working with 2.0.

___________________________________________________________________________
Douglas Scott
zardoz!doug%woof.columbia.edu