Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site cognos.UUCP Path: utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!cognos!glee From: glee@cognos.UUCP (Godfrey Lee) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Flight Simulator II (and uuencode mess-ups) [long] Message-ID: <300@cognos.UUCP> Date: Sat, 10-Jan-87 16:25:52 EST Article-I.D.: cognos.300 Posted: Sat Jan 10 16:25:52 1987 Date-Received: Sun, 11-Jan-87 04:39:03 EST References: <2280@well.UUCP> <340@oliveb.UUCP> <8232@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU> <5017@amdahl.UUCP> Reply-To: glee@cognos.UUCP (Godfrey Lee) Distribution: net Organization: Cognos Inc., Ottawa, Canada Lines: 30 Summary: In article <5017@amdahl.UUCP> kim@amdahl.UUCP (Kim DeVaughn) writes: (about improving uuencode/uudecode) >......... My gut feel is that a simple checksum on a per-line basis, >and an end-of-file indicator (checksummed, of course) is probably the >best compromise, as my experience has been that *most* of the time, >a file either makes it OK, has a "hunk" of a line missing, or gets >truncated. But what do you think? I think that you are correct. You also had reservation about getting a new version accepted. The experience on the net is that if you can make a demonstrable improvement (in this case, you CAN), and it is backward and forward compatible, by that I mean old programs can read new files and new programs can read old files, then it will be accepted. The vehicle for posting such a program is mod.sources. Another person thought that because the current uuencode/uudecode programs are so dumb, that it would be possible to add information to the file and stay compatible. I have noticed from the juggler posting that in fact any information after column 64 (?) is ignored. I discovered this when I re-uuencoded the defective binary to correct it, and noticed that the extra character on the end of the defective line is gone. So, a one character checksum at the end of each line will add only 1.56% to the total length of the file, a reasonable price to pay. -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Godfrey Lee, Cognos Incorporated, 3755 Riverside Drive, Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA K1G 3N3 (613) 738-1440 decvax!utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!cognos!glee -----------------------------------------------------------------------------