Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site brl-tgr.ARPA
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!godot!harvard!seismo!brl-tgr!wmartin
From: wmartin@brl-tgr.ARPA (Will Martin )
Newsgroups: net.news
Subject: Readnews skipping postings
Message-ID: <5516@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Date: Tue, 30-Oct-84 14:41:19 EST
Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.5516
Posted: Tue Oct 30 14:41:19 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 31-Oct-84 06:30:58 EST
Distribution: net
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab
Lines: 52

Has the new (2.10.2 or whatever) readnews incorporated some new version of
code or added some processing that attempts to be "smart" about skipping
over postings that it thinks you've already seen? I ask this because I
just noticed a strange behavior which I cannot explain, and which I do not
recall seeing under the older readnews. I suspect that this is a symptom of
what I would call a "serious" bug (defining "serious" to be something that
causes a reader to miss postings, or adversely impact the ability to read
the news).

I normally run readnews with simple shell scripts that call readnews on a
group of newsgroups, with the format "readnews -n net.xxx,net.zzz,net.qqq"
and so on, grouping the newsgroups into categories as I wish. I just was
reading using the following script:

readnews -n net.flame,net.followup,net.misc,net.politics,net.women

I was reading messages in net.misc, and suddenly noticed that I had
skipped over some posting numbers. Normally, this wouldn't be unusual --
I would assume that the item had been in both net.flame and net.misc,
and I had already read it as the system went through net.flame. However,
I had just started this process, having "q'd" out of it before lunch,
and had begun in net.misc; there was nothing new in net.flame when I
began reading again. I entered the missing article numbers, and found
that they were NOT addressed to net.flame at all -- they were posted
to net.motss, net.politics, and net.misc (in that order). I then "q'd"
out, edited my .newsrc net.misc entry to point to before those items,
and ran readnews with the script again. Again it skipped those items!!!

I then "q'd" again, re-edited .newsrc, and did a "readnews -n net.misc"
directly. THEN it would display those skipped items. I surmised that
having the "net.motss" entry as the first posting had some effect.
I did a "readnews -n net.misc -x -t Homophobic" to look for any 
similar postings, and found some which I had never seen before, and some
which I recalled reading. (Why would some be skipped and some
displayed? I saw some followups but had not seen the base items!) OK,
so I thought that maybe adding "net.motss" to my shell script might have an 
effect. I again re-edited .newsrc to point before those skipped items,
and also added to the shell script, so it read:

readnews -n net.flame,net.followup,net.misc,net.politics,net.women,net.motss

I then executed it again. IT AGAIN SKIPPED THE ITEMS IN QUESTION!!!!

I am now at a loss. What is going on? I now cannot trust a simple
readnews command to show me all the stuff that is there! I'll have
to waste my time keeping mental track of every damn article number, and
specifically ask to see any that are skipped, to make sure that I
have really seen them! HELP!!!!

Will Martin

USENET: seismo!brl-bmd!wmartin     or   ARPA/MILNET: wmartin@almsa-1.ARPA