Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!att!cbnewsc!msc
From: msc@cbnewsc.ATT.COM (michael.s.cross)
Newsgroups: news.newusers.questions
Subject: Re: New Newsgroup Queries
Summary: HUGE .newsrc file
Message-ID: <3599@cbnewsc.ATT.COM>
Date: 2 Oct 89 17:56:32 GMT
References: <1989Sep25.213655.21377@eci386.uucp>
Reply-To: msc@cbnewsc.ATT.COM (michael.s.cross,sk,)
Distribution: na
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 28

In article <1989Sep25.213655.21377@eci386.uucp> clewis@eci386.UUCP (Chris Lewis) writes:
>Ideally, rn should automatically insert *all* new newsgroups in .newsrc, and
>then ask if you wish to subscribe (ala ":" or "!" in .newsrc).
>
>Until rn is fixed... *always* reply "y", and unsubscribe if you ever get
>prompted to read the newsgroup.  S'not hard for the first part - hit space 
>twice.  The second?  Just say "u".

This, of course, leaves you with a huge .newsrc file (which can't be edited).
Our version of 'rn' still marks crossposted articles read, even if the other
newsgroup is unsubscribed to. (ex: article in rec.music.misc is read.  The
article was crossposted to alt.rock-n-roll, so that number is marked as read. 
Unfortunatly, I unsubscribed to alt.rock-n-roll, but 'rn' doesn't look to see
if there is a ":" or a "!" on the newsgroup line.)  After about a week of
marking one article here, another article there, the line gets over 512
characters long, and our 'vi' editor barfs because of "line too long".

Another problem with leaving all the lines in the .newsrc file appears when
you have a News-server machine and are limited to 300 blocks of storage ...
one or two KILL files and you're out of room.

Mike
(is someone collecting 'rn' bugs???)

-- 
Michael S. Cross  (msc@ihc.att.com)  (312)-982-2018
AT&T Bell Laboratories, 5555 Touhy Ave., Skokie, IL  60077
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