🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Apr13.015452.12324@talon.ucs.orst.edu>  
mcgredo@bluto.ie.orst.edu (Don McGregor) writes:
> Scott Wisdom writes
> >This is due to the fact that someone created a bogus newsgroup with the
> >'&' character in the name. This causes NewsGrazer to crash
> 
> NG will also occasionally crash when munged articles are posted.That can  
> be solved easily enough by editing the .newsrc or unsubscribing from the  
> group.

Actually, Scott picked up on my earlier errneous post that incorrectly  
attributed the cause to the "&" in the name.  In reality, it was too many  
components in the name.   But, Don, you can't fix this problem by editing  
newsrc;  NewsGrazer blows up when it is reading the active group list  
from the NNTP server.  

I dutifully sent mail on the subject to "newsgrazer@next.com", and was  
told (nicely) that the fix is known, but cannot be released due to a NeXT  
internal policy.  I wish we knew more about the policy, but that should  
(and has been) the subject of another thread.  

Here's a note from the SysAdmin at my site detailing how he bypassed the  
problem for us:

% From: jjm@transfer.stratus.com (Jim Murray)
% Here is the script I ran.
% /usr/lib/news/rmgroup 
    alt.music.pop.will.eat.itself.X.Y.&.Z.electrix.sunshine.mix"
% /usr/lib/news/rmgroup alt.music.pop.will.eat.itself
% /usr/lib/news/rmgroup 
    alt.music.pop.will.eat.itself.the.poppies.are.on.patrol
% /usr/lib/news/rmgroup 
   alt.music.pop.will.eat.itself.X.Y.and.Z.electrix.sunshine.mix
% 
% I also added the following code to control.c in inews.
% 
% #ifndef ALLOWBOGUSGROUPS
% {
% int	num_sections;
% char	*tptr;
% char	cur_char;
% 
% tptr = argv[1];
% num_sections = 0;
% while (cur_char = *tptr++)
% 	{
% 	if (cur_char == '.' && num_sections++ > 8))
% 	{
% 		logerr ("Newsgroup %s has too many parts", argv[1]);
%     		return (1);
%  	}
% 	
% 	if (!isalnum (cur_char) && (strchr ("+-_.", cur_char) == 0))
% 	{
% 		logerr ("Bad character in newsgroup name %s", argv[1]);
% 		return (1);
% 	}
% }
% }
% #endif

I hope everbody has as SysAdmin who's so responsive, especially on a  
Sunday!   

--
L. W. "Dan" Danz                  VOS Mail:  Dan_Danz@vos.stratus.com
Sr Consulting Software SE         NeXT Mail: dan@az.stratus.com
Customer Assistance Center        Voice Mail/Pager: (602) 852-3107
Telecommunications Division       Customer Service: (800) 828-8513
Stratus Computer, Inc. 4455 E. Camelback #115-A, Phoenix AZ 85018