ietf-nntp Issue: number range rollover

[Clive D.W. Feather]

Chrisy Luke said:
> Readers are going to have to be adapted anyway...
> 
> ...so why not rewrite all the readers with an agreed maximum HWM and
> rollover to 0 like a FIFO buffer. It's obvious when this is the case -
> the HWM is less than the LWM. If IBM could code it into a 16kb PC BIOS
> ROM for 16-byte buffered keyboard handling I'm sure you can implement
> it with 32-bit numbers in a news system. No renumbering required [tm].
> It's all a question of the maximum HWM being agreed on.

This isn't that unreasonable an idea. However, if we do it, I suggest we do
follow the quadrant system I described before: when article numbers reach
2^32-1, the next article number should be 2^30 (or 2^31 if people feel
unhappy with a rollback not a power of two). This ensures that rollback
doesn't get confused with empty groups and the other special uses of zero.

-- 
Clive D.W. Feather    | Associate Director  | Director
Tel: +44 181 371 1138 | Demon Internet Ltd. | CityScape Internet Services Ltd.
Fax: +44 181 371 1150 | <clive at demon.net>   | <cdwf at cityscape.co.uk>