🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <MRL.92Dec18123306@sun4.uai.com> mrl@uai.com (Mark R. Ludwig) writes:
>... If I don't delete history.o,
>doexpire (or something it calls) complains that it has to run with
>expire -r.

A modern doexpire will itself delete history.o before it starts getting
serious about space shortages.  You've got a seriously-old copy of C News.

>What is the purpose of history.o?  When is it needed?  Can I automate
>the removal of history.o? ...

It's just the old history file.  It can be useful for troubleshooting.
Otherwise, its only real use is that it ties down about the amount of
space that doexpire will need for the history rebuild, in effect reserving
it to increase the chances that doexpire won't need to resort to -r.
Modern doexpires automate its removal already.
-- 
"God willing... we shall return."       | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
       -Gene Cernan, the Moon, Dec 1972 |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry

In article <MRL.92Dec18123306@sun4.uai.com> mrl@uai.com (Mark R. Ludwig) wrote:
>
>What is the purpose of history.o?  When is it needed?  Can I automate
>the removal of history.o?  I'd like not to have to move things.$$

It's a copy of the old history file.

I've been running with the following for over a year with no problem:

$ grep history.o /usr/lib/newsbin/expire/doexpire

expire $ropt $hopt $* $NEWSCTL/explist 2>/tmp/doex$$ && > $NEWSCTL/history.o


Note that if expire fails, nothing happens to history.o.  If expire works,
history.o is truncated to zero length.

This is based on an old (ca. 1990) doexpire. Modify to suit your local
conditions.
-- 
	Bruce Lilly		blilly!bruce@Broadcast.Sony.COM
					...uunet!sonyusa!sonyd1!blilly!bruce

In article <MRL.92Dec18123306@sun4.uai.com> mrl@uai.com (Mark R. Ludwig) writes:
>I'm trying to keep $NEWSCTL where it is.  We have about 17 megabytes
>of available space on that partition if I delete history.o.  The
>history file is about 8 megabytes.  If I don't delete history.o,
>doexpire (or something it calls) complains that it has to run with
>expire -r.

>What is the purpose of history.o?  When is it needed?  Can I automate
>the removal of history.o?  I'd like not to have to move things.$$

It's a backup copy of history, created when expire runs. It's needed
when your existing history file gets munged, and you need a quick
way of getting things going again. You can certainly automate its'
removal; just put in a cron job to kill it right before expire runs.


-- 
Gary Heston    SCI Systems, Inc.  gary@sci34hub.sci.com   site admin
The Chairman of the Board and the CFO speak for SCI. I'm neither.
"Data sheet: HSN-3000 Nuclear Event Detector. The [NED] senses the gamma
radiation pulse [from a] nuclear weapon." As if we wouldn't notice...

In article <BzJ66K.6zr@zoo.toronto.edu> henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry
Spencer) writes (about history.o):


   Modern doexpires automate its removal already.

Unless you use the -v flag to get expire statistics...

In article <Bzo27w.2Lv@ssr.com> sdb@ssr.com (Scott Ballantyne) writes:
>... writes (about history.o):
>   Modern doexpires automate its removal already.
>
>Unless you use the -v flag to get expire statistics...

-v has nothing to do with it.  You're probably thinking of -r, which
does suppress the history.o removal... because it also suppresses the
history rebuild, so there's no need for the extra space.
-- 
"God willing... we shall return."       | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
       -Gene Cernan, the Moon, Dec 1972 |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry

In article <BzqItJ.L16@zoo.toronto.edu> henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:

   >In article <Bzo27w.2Lv@ssr.com> sdb@ssr.com (Scott Ballantyne) writes:
   >>Unless you use the -v flag to get expire statistics...
   >-v has nothing to do with it.  

-v has eveything to do with it. Here are the lines from the end of doexpire:

	if test -s /tmp/doex$$
	then
		(echo 'expire problems:' ; cat /tmp/doex$$ ) | mail "$NEWSMASTER"
		rm -f /tmp/doex$$
		exit 1
	fi
	rm -f /tmp/doex$$ $NEWSCTL/history.o
	exit 0

If one passes the -v flag to doexpire, the /tmp/doex$$ will not be a
non-zero size, and the exit 1 will be performed, and the history.o
file will not be removed. It's the same code that causes people to
keep asking you how to fix the 'expire problems' that -v
causes....

This is the doexpire from the nov release, so perhaps this is a change
from earlier versions.

In article <BzuC3B.LEz@ssr.com> sdb@ssr.com (Scott Ballantyne) writes:
>   >-v has nothing to do with it.  
>
>-v has eveything to do with it. Here are the lines from the end of doexpire:
>
>	if test -s /tmp/doex$$
>	then
>		(echo 'expire problems:' ; cat /tmp/doex$$ ) | mail "$NEWSMASTER"
>		rm -f /tmp/doex$$
>		exit 1
>	fi
>	rm -f /tmp/doex$$ $NEWSCTL/history.o
>	exit 0
> ...
>This is the doexpire from the nov release, so perhaps this is a change
>from earlier versions.

Uh, what do you mean, "the nov release"???  There was no November release.
The code above does not appear in *any* C News release we have ever shipped.
-- 
"God willing... we shall return."       | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
       -Gene Cernan, the Moon, Dec 1972 |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry

Henry Spencer <henry@zoo.toronto.edu> writes:

   Uh, what do you mean, "the nov release"???

Hmmmm... The "newsoverview" stuff by Geoff Collyer, usually referred
to as "nov" (sic), available as world.std.com:pub/src/news/nov.dist.tar.Z.
The doexpire in there has the code mentioned in it.

Cheers,

Jussi-Pekka Mantere

In article <JPM.92Dec26155451@cardhu.cs.hut.fi> jpm@cs.hut.fi (Jussi-Pekka Mantere) writes:
>   Uh, what do you mean, "the nov release"???
>
>Hmmmm... The "newsoverview" stuff by Geoff Collyer, usually referred
>to as "nov" (sic), available as world.std.com:pub/src/news/nov.dist.tar.Z.
>The doexpire in there has the code mentioned in it.

That isn't a C News release...  "nov" is "News OVerview", not "NOVember".
And if memory serves, that code is explicitly advertised as being a wee
bit experimental as yet.  Geoff simply goofed on this one.
-- 
"God willing... we shall return."       | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
       -Gene Cernan, the Moon, Dec 1972 |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry