[news.software.anu-news] Newsgroup titles going awry

chill@acad.cut.oz (02/21/90)

We have had troubles with NEWS 5.8A newsgroup titles getting incorrectly set 
to the titles of other groups. Every so often, someone here dummies up a 
command file from checkgroups items to set them right.

Can someone tell me whether NEWS should automatically set the titles up as
soon as it receives a checkgroups message? Has anyone else seen this problem?

We've just installed v5.9C; don't know yet whether the title problem is
apparent here though.

Ian Hill
Curtin University of Technology

gih900@csc.anu.oz (Geoff Huston) (02/22/90)

In article <2008.25e26e83@acad.cut.oz>, chill@acad.cut.oz writes:
> We have had troubles with NEWS 5.8A newsgroup titles getting incorrectly set 
> to the titles of other groups. Every so often, someone here dummies up a 
> command file from checkgroups items to set them right.
> 
> Can someone tell me whether NEWS should automatically set the titles up as
> soon as it receives a checkgroups message? Has anyone else seen this problem?
> 
> We've just installed v5.9C; don't know yet whether the title problem is
> apparent here though.

There is (was) a bug in do_newg (NEWSUTILITY.C) where the grp_title field
was not explicitly loaded with the null string.

In response to a checkgroups message the title should be loaded with the
checkgroups comment field, so the problem should only be apparent with
newsgroups created in response to a local create newsgroup or a control:
newgroup message.  The relevant code change in NEWSUTILITY.C is:


/*
 *  do_newg
 *
 *  Create newsgroup if it does not already exist.
 */

unsigned int do_newg(g,prompt)
  char *g;
  int prompt;
{
  ...

    newsgrp = savegrp;
    util_cpy(newsgrp.grp_name,s);
    newsgrp.grp_topnum = 0;
    newsgrp.grp_count = 0;
    time(&newsgrp.grp_credate);
    time(&newsgrp.grp_entdate);
    newsgrp.grp_life = newsgrp.grp_itmlife = 0;
    newsgrp.grp_reg = newsgrp.grp_unread = 0;
    newsgrp.grp_ia = newsgrp.grp_iasize = newsgrp.grp_iavd = 0;
    newsgrp.grp_iavdsize = newsgrp.grp_iapaste = newsgrp.grp_c_itm = 0;
    newsgrp.grp_display_indx = newsgrp.grp_flags = newsgrp.grp_reg_text = 0;
    newsgrp.grp_topic[0] = newsgrp.grp_notice[0] = '\0';
  /*^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ */
    grprab.rab$w_rsz = sizeof newsgrp;
    _c$cks(sys$put(&grprab));
    ...
}


Geoff Huston