.newsrc file fixer

[Brett Slocum]

In article <8439 at boring.cwi.nl> dik at cwi.nl (Dik T. Winter) writes:
>In article <2672 at taux01.UUCP> amos at taux01.UUCP (Amos Shapir) writes:
> > In article <8437 at boring.cwi.nl> dik at cwi.nl (Dik T. Winter) writes:
> > >	cp .newsrc .newsrc.old
> > >	sed -e '/!/d' .newsrc.old >.newsrc
> > 
> > The point of keeping unsubscribed groups in .newsrc is that whenever a
> > new group is created, rn will ask you if you want to add it.  It
> > probably checks if there are any groups in the active file that are not
> > in .newsrc.  Since it cannot tell which of these is the new one, it will
> > ask about each and every one!  That means hundreds of questions, and you
> > cannot go on reading news before answering all of them.
>
>But I checked.  Rn will only check for new groups if the active file is changed.
>Next in the file addng.c we find the following comment:
>					/* if not in .newsrc and younger */
>					/* than the last time we checked */
>					/* then remember said newsgroup */
>So... (This is patchlevel 40.)

'rn' won't ask for groups not in your .newsrc, as Dik Winter states, but
readnews WILL ask for everything.  I had the occasion to have this happen
recently when the machine with 'rn' was down and I used readnews.

-- 
Brett Slocum, Honeywell SSDC, Golden Valley, Minnesota
<uunet!hi-csc!slocum>              | AIDS is a virus; George Bush
  or <hi-csc!slocum at uunet.uu.net>  | is a punishment from God.