Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site pur-phy.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxj!houxm!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!CS-Mordred!Pucc-H:pur-phy!crl From: crl@pur-phy.UUCP (Charles LaBrec) Newsgroups: net.news.b Subject: Re: More strangeness from 2.10.2 Message-ID: <1484@pur-phy.UUCP> Date: Tue, 23-Oct-84 12:18:08 EDT Article-I.D.: pur-phy.1484 Posted: Tue Oct 23 12:18:08 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 25-Oct-84 02:46:07 EDT References: <1464@pur-phy.UUCP> <11@uwvax.UUCP> Reply-To: crl@pur-phy.UUCP (Charles LaBrec) Distribution: net Organization: Purdue Univ. Physics Dept., IN Lines: 48 Summary: I have finally taken some time to look at 2.10.2, and have decided that the way sortactive() works is undesirable, to say the least. I really dislike new groups being put at the top. I set up my .newsrc to see IMPORTANT groups there, and just because some unimportant one that I want to read comes in, I have to edit the .newsrc. What a pain. Furthermore, it sorts them in a semi-random order sometimes. Here is a good example. A new user without a .newsrc starts reading, does a few groups, and quits. The next time he/she starts, the next batch will be placed at the beginning, circumventing the active file order, which at least is reasonable. By the end of a few sessions, his/her .newsrc will be a mess. If new groups were added to the end, the default would be to keep the .newsrc in active file order, more or less. What I meant about semi-random is this: the function that does the compares for qsort() in sortactive() only compares the line numbers that that group is found in the .newsrc. When a group is not in the .newsrc, its line number is considered to be -1. So all groups not listed compare equally. Consider the following .newsrc and active files: .newsrc: active: general: general e: a b: b c d e After the sort, I think the active would look like: general e b c d a So what was once 2nd is now last. At our site, this means a local group would get put at the end. With a longer .newsrc, it would really jumble it. Since the compare routine gets called with a struct pointer that contains both the newsrc line index and the active file position, I intend to check for an index of -1, and then sort by active file pos. Does anyone out there see a problem with this? About the man pages, for one I notice that checknews has a new option -N to check only specific groups. I'd really appreciate a new set of all the man pages so that I don't (and my users don't) have to look at the source to determine what is new. (Expire also has a new switch or two.) Charles LaBrec UUCP: pur-ee!Physics:crl, purdue!Physics:crl INTERNET: crl @ pur-phy.UUCP