gds@mit-eddie.UUCP (Greg Skinner) (05/20/84)
I would imagine that reading news would be an atomic operation, i.e.
you read all your news, or you read none of it. Perhaps this should
be changed but that would mean writing out a temporary file for every
message you read, since that file is the only thing that knows how much
news you read. Either that, or it needs to rewrite .newsrc each time
you read a message (real inefficient).
--
Be ye moby,
for I am moby.
Greg Skinner (gregbo)
{decvax!genrad, eagle!mit-vax, ihnp4}!mit-eddie!gds
Joy is in the ears that hear.geoff@utcsstat.UUCP (Geoff Collyer) (05/23/84)
Readnews actually catches SIGHUP (a hangup signal) and last time I tried it, it updated my .newsrc (which was a real pain since I was planning to type x to get out without update). Readnews might still be susceptible to multiple hangups in rapid succession (depending upon your kernel's treatment of signals), or perhaps was hit by a SIGKILL due to 4.2BSD's rlogin. Readnews is far too cavalier about rewriting .newsrc and has trashed enough .newsrc's that I copy my .newsrc to a backup file before I read news. Don't confuse B news with production software. Remember, B news is Bad news.
richl@daemon.UUCP (Rick Lindsley) (05/28/84)
Invoking either readnews or vnews with the -u option will cause the program
to update the .newsrc file every 5 minutes. Treats a symptom not the cause,
but it is a way to get around the signal problem.
Rick Lindsley
richl@tektronix
...!{allegra,decvax,ihnp4}!tektronix!richljerryp@tektronix.UUCP (Jerry Peek) (05/29/84)
------
Our version of "readnews" has a -u option. It updates the .newsrc file
at the end of each newsgroup read, or every five minutes, whichever is
longer.
--Jerry Peek, UNIX Training Instructor, Tektronix, Inc.
US Mail: MS 76-036, P.O. Box 500, Beaverton, OR 97077
uucp: {allegra,decvax,hplabs,ihnp4,mit-eddie,ucbvax}!tektronix!jerryp
CSnet: jerryp@tek
ARPAnet: jerryp.tek@csnet-relay
Phone: 503/627-1603