[NNTP] Large article numbers extension

Clive D.W. Feather clive at demon.net
Thu Jul 28 08:20:25 PDT 2005


Charles Lindsey said:
> Actually, what we are seeing is that there is little difference between a
> wrap-around and an intelligently performed flag day.

Right.

> Indeed, the essential difference is that a wrap-around is written into
> some future extension of our standard, so that clients that understand the
> extension can detect it and make adjustments to .newsrc files
> automatically;

But, I would argue, any work to change clients would be better done by
implementing a large numbers extension instead.

>> However, in either situation, what if there isn't a .newsrc file you can
>> edit? This appears to be the situation in Turnpike, for example. [I
>> normally use it in Newnews mode, so I'm not completely familiar with this
>> case.]
> Surely, there must be some equivalent of the .newsrc file. OTOH if the
> client is relying entirely on NEWNEWS, they it doesn't really care about
> article numbers anyway.

You misunderstand. Turnpike can run (on a per-server basis) in either
NEWNEWS or article number mode. In each case the record of the current
state is stored in binary files, not in a text file that can easily be
edited. My only available options are:
* NEWNEWS mode: change the "last fetched" time for a group to:
  - now
  - the last time a fetch was done
  - a specific time
* Article number mode:
  - fetch all new articles
  - fetch all new articles and refetch the last N already-fetched articles
  - fetch the N most recent articles only
Also note that these relate to fetching articles into the common database;
each user has a separate "articles read" list.

My point, though, is that all this information is hidden away somewhere in
binary files which I have no idea how to edit.

-- 
Clive D.W. Feather  | Work:  <clive at demon.net>   | Tel:    +44 20 8495 6138
Internet Expert     | Home:  <clive at davros.org>  | Fax:    +44 870 051 9937
Demon Internet      | WWW: http://www.davros.org | Mobile: +44 7973 377646
Thus plc            |                            |



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