🚀 go-pugleaf

On Monday, in article <830170486snz@wbriscoe.demon.co.uk>
     walter@wbriscoe.demon.co.uk "walter briscoe" wrote:

wb> When you expire a newgroup, the article file, the index file and ACTIVE
wb> are updated.  EXPIRE handles the article and index files safely.
wb> However ACTIVE is updated in an unsafe manner.

I've just been looking at unbatch.c, having suffered a
fatal error #12 on Sunday.  I didn't fancy using reindex
and losing the articles-read info.  'active' is updated
before the new article is appended to the file.  I would
have expected that step to be last, and it would then be
relatively easy to have a utility that would trim the
news file and index back to the high article number
recorded in 'active'.

wb> BTW, EXPIRE has an alternative mode of working
wb> which gives me the screaming heeby-jeebies.  It takes a parameter and
wb> applies that to all groups. e.g. expire 0 will delete all news in all
wb> groups - even those with -ve expiry times.  Opinions on

[scream] [h-j's]

wb> changing/removing that feature?  Opinions on adding an option not to
wb> expire unread articles.  I would like to mark FAQs etc as articles not

Sounds good to me.

wb> to be expired.  Making them unread would do that for me with the revised
wb> specification.

I have thoughts of a 'keep' function in snews, implemented much
the same way as 'delete' and SnzPrune.

Also SnzPrune ought to be able to note Supersedes lines
and/or Expires.

wb> 
wb> Malcolm has expressed concerns that EXPIRE should not be any slower than

ROTFL.

So use del *.*, it's amazingly efficient.

Users who put speed before accuracy and reliability get what
they deserve.

--
John Washington