Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84 SMI; site sun.uucp Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ulysses!allegra!bellcore!decvax!decwrl!sun!gnu From: gnu@sun.uucp Newsgroups: net.news Subject: Feature suggestion for netnews -- file enclosure Message-ID: <1897@sun.uucp> Date: Mon, 24-Dec-84 21:42:21 EST Article-I.D.: sun.1897 Posted: Mon Dec 24 21:42:21 1984 Date-Received: Wed, 26-Dec-84 01:57:11 EST Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc. Lines: 21 We've seen a variety of schemes for passing source and object files around on the Usenet and thru network mail. I think that an easy hack in netnews would make it all much simpler. Provide a standard file enclosure/encoding/decoding inside netnews itself. To send source files, simply put a header line saying "Enclosures: foo.c foo.1". When posted, inews would pick up these files and attach them to the message. When the message is read, readnews and friends would show the body of the message, but not the files -- just their names in the Enclosures: line. A simple command would extract the enclosures into a specified (or defaulted) directory. This would also help the people who archive source, since they could identify the source files in each message, index the filenames, etc. The encoded form could be a stylized shell archive (parseable without using the shell, but if you feed it to the shell, it works). It should deal with any file including binaries; this would simplify the info-mac peoples' lives, sending fonts, etc. We have enough working shar programs and scripts, surely we can automate a working one and make all our lives easier.