ietf-nntp New wording on article numbers - draft 2

[Robert Elz]

    Date:        Thu, 02 Jan 1997 01:57:47 -0500
    From:        "Jack De Winter" <jack at wildbear.on.ca>
    Message-ID:  <3.0.32.19970102015745.00d48e00 at lacroix>

    Once again, why is everyone a strong proponent of keeping 0 0 0 ?

Partly as it seems this is what is done by every major server
that currently exists - and given that it is very hard to be sure
that there may not be clients that actually depend upon that
behaviour.

But also because for a (traditional) server that wants to make the
count accurate it means the only place they need to look is the
directory containing the articles, they can ignore the active file
(don't need to find the entry at all).

That is
	first = last = count = 0;
	fd = opendir(convert_group_to_path(arg));
	while (dp = readdir(fd)) {
		if (n = is_an_article(dp->d_name)) {
			if (first == 0 || n < first)
				first = n;
			if (n > last)
				last = n;
			count++;
		}
	}
	closedir(fd);
	fprintf(buffer, "%d %d %d", first, last, count);

and then "buffer" is used in the response.   There's no way to
get other numbers for "first" and "last" without going to the
active file (or equivalent).

And finally because there is no way you're ever going to get
consensus for forbitting it, or even strongly recommending
against it.   Isn't that clear?

kre