ietf-nntp Zero-argument ARTICLE and missing articles

[greg andruk]

On Wed, Jul 04, 2001 at 10:44:15PM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:
> What is the behavior of the zero-argument form of ARTICLE (and HEAD, BODY,
> and STAT for that matter) supposed to be if the current article pointer is
> pointing to an article that doesn't exist (such as an article that's been
> cancelled since the group was entered)?

Ref. NNTP behavior:

  - On entering the group, the low art number is obtained from a dir
    scan.

  - If that low article goes away before a no-arg ART/HEAD/BODY/STAT,
    the default article number bumps upward until one is found, then
    that is used.

  - Once a successful A/H/B/S [number] has been issued, looks like the
    file is kept open, so unlinking doesn't generally interfere once a
    current article number has been established.

  - A/H/B/S <msgid> uses a separate file pointer, so the above atill
    works as long as the current art num is unchanged.