🚀 go-pugleaf

On Saturday, in article <830611160snz@keris.demon.co.uk>
     chris@keris.demon.co.uk "Chris Croughton" wrote:

CC> In article <830215383snz@wash.demon.co.uk>
CC>            john@wash.demon.co.uk "John Washington" writes:
CC> 
CC> >I've just been looking at unbatch.c, having suffered a
CC> >fatal error #12 on Sunday.  I didn't fancy using reindex
CC> >and losing the articles-read info.  'active' is updated
CC> >before the new article is appended to the file.  I would
CC> >have expected that step to be last, and it would then be
CC> >relatively easy to have a utility that would trim the
CC> >news file and index back to the high article number
CC> >recorded in 'active'.
CC> 
CC> It exists.  LSI (Logical SNEWS Indexer) should be around on the FTP
CC> server.  It basically just renumbers the active file as you suggest, and
CC> doesn't spoil the other files.   It's not a total cure, but as you say
CC> if it fails you can always do reindex...

Thanks, I'd forgotten LSI.  But it wouldn't have helped
in this case.  I had a chunk of BIOS and a zillion FFs appended
to the new file.  However, if 'active' had not yet been updated,
it and the .idx would have shown where to truncate the file.
I suppose one could just assume the end of the .idx file is
good, and truncate the newsgroup file on the basis of that
only.

My current feeling is that unbatch would be improved by
changing to update 'active' later, and without any disadvantage.
But beware the Greeks bearing free lunches, or some such proverb?

--
John Washington