HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: snewton@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu (Steven E. Newton)
Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.wais
Subject: Re: PC WAIS Client for Windows Sockets?
Date: 31 Dec 1992 14:52:48 GMT
Organization: UT Health Science Center Houston

In article <CATONE.92Dec31001034@sovereign-gw.dmark.wharton.upenn.edu> catone@dmark.wharton.upenn.edu (Tony Catone) writes:
>In article <tfiske.725743115@qualcom> tfiske@qualcom.qualcomm.com (T.J. Fiske) writes:
>
>
>   With the upcomming release of Windows Socket Standard, is anybody
>   working on converting one of the Windows WAIS clients over to this
>   standard?  This would allow one client to work for everybody!  No
>   matter what network software they were running under Windows.
>
>   If anyone has any ideas please let me know, we are using PC/TCP and
>   therefore cant run and any of the PC Clients, and since we have 400
>   PC users, this is a bit a problem? :)
>
>Actually, if you use the generic ethernet version of PC/TCP over
>packet drivers, you can run PCWais simply by wrapping a batch file
>around it to inet unload beforehand and ethdrv after; alternatively,
>and perhaps more simply, you could wrap batch files around your PC/TCP
>commands to ethdrv before and inet unload after.

If you need a sockets-based DOS client to start from, try ours.
It's available for anonymous ftp at:
oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu:/public/dos/misc/oacwais.exe

This is a self-extracting archive.  Contact me for info about the source
code.

Steven E. Newton
Academic Computing

-- 
+      +      +      +      +      +      +    |snewton@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu
            I can hear you well,               |Nobody else speaks for me,
            George Orwell.                     |and I speak for no one else.
                                               |     +     +     +     +     +
Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.wais
From: Jane Smith <jds@concert.net>
Subject: New mailing list for Z39.50 project
X-Xxmessage-Id: <A76718E976038311@akebia.concert.net>
X-Xxdate: Wed, 30 Dec 92 14: 14:17 GMT
Organization: Clearinghouse for Networked Information Discovery and Retrieval
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1.1d13
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 14:14:08 GMT

A new mailing list for technical discussion about the Z39.50-92
information project (zip, for the moment) which was announced to
several mailing lists and newsgroups by Jim Fullton on Dec. 23,
1992
has been set up at:

  zip@kudzu.concert.net

To subscribe to the list, send mail to:

  zip-request@kudzu.concert.net

with the text:

  subscribe zip

This is a simple mail reflector, not a listserv mechanism. You
will
receive notification of subscription when your address has been
added
to the mailing list.

Archives can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from
kudzu.concert.net:

  /pub/zip/zipmail*

A brief excerpt from the original Z39.50-92 information
project announcement follows:

In article <1992Dec23.203300.26379@rock.concert.net> Jim
Fullton,
fullton@jazz.concert.net writes:
>As some of you may know, the U.S. National Science Foundation
has funded
>the creation of the Clearinghouse for Networked Information
Discovery
>and Retrieval. One of the responsibilities of CNIDR is to
promote the
>use and development of tools for discovering and using
networked
>information. We have been specifically charged with the task of
>providing an evolutionary path for the public-domain version
of WAIS,
>the Wide Area Information Server. Therefore, we have been
paying close
>attention to the remarks and "wish lists" provided by the
network
>community, and are well into a project to try to fulfill those
wishes.
>
>We are in the early beta test stages of a new generation of
WAIS-like
>systems that build on the heritage of WAIS as released by
Thinking
>Machines, but with quite a bit of extensibility and new
features.
>Specifically, and with the help of many others, we're creating
a
>Z39.50-92 (soon to be 93) server with full backwards
compatibility with
>current WAIS clients and indexes, features such as boolean
search,
>formatted searching on fielded text information, thesaurus
based synonym
>substitution, stemming, and a search engine integration
toolkit.

The entire text of the announcement can be retrieved via
anonymous ftp
from kudzu.concert.net:

  /pub/zip/zip.announce
From: emv@msen.com (Edward Vielmetti)
Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.wais
Subject: Re: WAIS server returns *name* of document, rather than document?
Date: 24 Dec 1992 17:57:45 GMT
Organization: Msen, Inc. -- Ann Arbor, Michigan
NNTP-Posting-Host: garnet.msen.com
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL8]

Jonathan Goldman (jonathan@philo.think.com) wrote:

: You can get the filename out of the DOCID:  in the public server the docid
: is just a string of "start-offset end-offset filename", so you could modify
: a client to just get the file itself, but...

In particular decode the "distributor local-id" field that you get
as part of the waisq structure; in perl, the "pack" command will
do the work for you.  Something like this little bit of code should
get you useful output so you can see what is going on.

#!/usr/local/bin/perl
#
# decode byte-encoded fields from waisq structure
# nb: the foreach/if loop could probably be crunched down to one "pack"
#
# usage: decode ~/wais-questions/Quick

while(<>) {
	if (/:(original|distributor)-(\S+)/) {
	    $value = '';
	    s/^.*:bytes//;
	    @list = split;
	    print "$1 $2: ";
	    foreach $elem (@list) {
		if ($elem =~ /\d+/) {
			$value .= pack("c", $elem);
		}
   	    }
	    print "$value\n";
	}
}


  Edward Vielmetti, vice president for research, Msen Inc. emv@Msen.com
        Msen Inc., 628 Brooks, Ann Arbor MI  48103 +1 313 998 GLOB
From: chris@wupost.wustl.edu (Chris Myers)
Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.wais
Subject: Re: Anyone running WAIS 8.5b1 on AIX 3.2?
Date: 29 Dec 1992 14:23:29 -0600
Organization: Washington University in Saint Louis, MO USA
NNTP-Posting-Host: wuarchive.wustl.edu

mycroft@hal.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Charles Hannum) writes:


>In article <chris.725654418@wuarchive.wustl.edu> chris@wupost.wustl.edu
>(Chris Myers) writes:
>>
>> The standard cc compiler APPEARS to compile the code properly, but
>> somehow generates bad code when calling the scandir() library function
>> which is used to find sources in the WAIS server and client code --
>> scandir() always ends up returning a null list.
>
>This is caused by a bug in XLC.  You should get the latest version.

I'll make sure that the latest and greatest compiler is acquired, but
that still doesn't seem to address the problem when compiling with c89
(which is how I got the server and waissearch clients working).  Do you
think/know that a c89 (a/k/a xlc) bug is causing the problems I'm
experiencing with swais?

Thanks!
-- 
Chris Myers                                Internet: chris@wugate.wustl.edu
Software Engineer                           UUCP: ...!uunet!wuarchive!chris
Office of the Network Coordinator                BITNET: chris@wunet.bitnet
Washington University in Saint Louis                 Phone: +1 314 935 7390
From: krovetz@sydney.cs.umass.edu (Bob Krovetz)
Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.wais
Subject: Re: WAISStation Maximum Results Setting
Date: 24 Dec 92 17:00:21 GMT
Reply-To: krovetz@cs.umass.edu (Bob Krovetz)
Followup-To: comp.infosystems.wais
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst

In article <HARDIN.92Dec23060101@dino.mcc.com> hardin@dino.mcc.com (John Hardin) writes:
>Ann Farny writes:
>>  
>>  WAISStation 0.6.2 seems to have its maximum results returned
>>  setting at 15.  This is very limiting.  Is there any way to
>>  increase this?  I am guessing that the "Preferences" menu option,
>>  under the File menu, would let me change the setting, but 
>>  "Preferences" is always shaded and never seems to be available.
>>  
>>  Any suggestions?
>
>Yes.  This value is an attribute of the *server*.  It's settable via
>WAIStation's Source editor.
>
>-jwh
>--

Why isn't this up to the user (client)?  I use XWAIS rather than the 
WAIStation, but that also has no mechanism to change the number of 
documents returned.

Bob


Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.wais
From: ann@euclid.JPL.NASA.GOV (Ann Farny)
Subject: WAISStation Maximum Results Setting 
Reply-To: ann@euclid.jpl.nasa.gov
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA/Caltech
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 22:17:12 GMT

WAISStation 0.6.2 seems to have its maximum results returned
setting at 15.  This is very limiting.  Is there any way to
increase this?  I am guessing that the "Preferences" menu option,
under the File menu, would let me change the setting, but 
"Preferences" is always shaded and never seems to be available.

Any suggestions?
-- 
ann

Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.wais,comp.infosystems.gopher
From: Eric Lease Morgan <eric_morgn@ncsu.edu>
Subject: Re: Z39.50 Project Announcement
X-Xxmessage-Id: <A76476B62801184D@ericmorgan.lib.ncsu.edu>
X-Xxdate: Mon, 28 Dec 92 09:17:42 GMT
Organization: NCSU Libraries
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1.1d12
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 14:10:40 GMT

In article <1992Dec23.203300.26379@rock.concert.net> Jim Fullton,
fullton@jazz.concert.net writes:
>Specifically, and with the help of many others, we're creating a
>Z39.50-92 (soon to be 93) server with full backwards compatibility with
>current WAIS clients and indexes, features such as boolean search,
>formatted searching on fielded text information, thesaurus based synonym

Jim,

I think this is all a *very* good idea.

My main concern is the Boolean searching capabilities. I believe there
is a lot to be said for weighted searching as opposed to Boolean
searching.
I hope to see weighted searching still a possibility in the new WAIS.

Eric Lease Morgan
Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.wais
From: ann@euclid.JPL.NASA.GOV (Ann Farny)
Subject: Displaying GIF Images using WAISStation
Reply-To: ann@euclid.jpl.nasa.gov
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA/Caltech
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 22:19:40 GMT

Can anyone tell me how to display GIF images under
WAISStation?  I have CyberGIF on the machine, and
when I click on a GIF image file the file is
retrieved from the server, but then nothing happens.

Are there settings to set?  Buttons to click?  Icons
to drag?  
-- 
ann
Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.wais
From: eklein@sura.net (Ed Klein)
Subject: Filtering data in the server
Keywords: waisserver, filter, chunk 
Organization: SURAnet, College Park, MD, USA, NA, Earth, Milky Way
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 19:35:24 GMT


I'm working on a project wherein I'd need to make a particular
database's documents available in two forms.  One would be a the full
text of the item, and the other would be a portion of it.  I had hoped
I could just insert some code into the server that would, if a given
command-line switch, filter out the sections that were supposed to be
in omitted.

I marked the areas-to-be-omitted with characters that I knew wouldn't
appear in the database.  For example:


stuff that always gets seen
more stuff that always gets seen
%%%
some stuff that shouldn't be seen
more stuff that shouldn't be seen
&&&
still more stuff that always gets seen
yet still more stuff that always gets seen

This works wonderfully when using the xwais client.  However, it fails
miserably when using the Mac client.  It appears to me that this is
due to the difference in the "chunkCode".  I've tried various means of
getting around this but mostly so far, all I've done is bring myself a
few days closer to baldness from all the hair I've pulled out.

I could go into greater detail, but I will save the bandwidth.

So what I'm asking is:

1) has anyone already written something like this?

2) does anyone have any ideas how I might implement this without all
the hair loss?

I realize I could just have two copies of the data, but it's a very
database, and I'm already going to have enough disk-space problems.

Send email and I will summarize if there's any demand,

Ed

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
=  Ed Klein                              SURAnet                      = 
=  Network Information Technologist      Network Information Center   =
=  eklein@sura.net                       301-982-4600                 =
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.wais
From: danj@welchgate.welch.jhu.edu (Dan Jacobson)
Subject: Re: WAISStation Maximum Results Setting
Organization: Johns Hopkins Univ. Welch Medical Library
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 19:56:36 GMT

In article <58005@dime.cs.umass.edu> krovetz@cs.umass.edu (Bob Krovetz) writes:
>In article <HARDIN.92Dec23060101@dino.mcc.com> hardin@dino.mcc.com (John Hardin) writes:
>>Ann Farny writes:
>>>  
>>>  WAISStation 0.6.2 seems to have its maximum results returned
>>>  setting at 15.  This is very limiting.  Is there any way to
>>>  increase this?  I am guessing that the "Preferences" menu option,
>>>  under the File menu, would let me change the setting, but 
>>>  "Preferences" is always shaded and never seems to be available.
>>>  
>>>  Any suggestions?
>>
>>Yes.  This value is an attribute of the *server*.  It's settable via
>>WAIStation's Source editor.
>>
>>-jwh
>>--
>
>Why isn't this up to the user (client)?  I use XWAIS rather than the 
>WAIStation, but that also has no mechanism to change the number of 
>documents returned.
>
>Bob
>
>

For WAIStation - Open the source of interest (from either the
"Sources" pull down menu of WAIStation or by double clicking
on the source file itself) and look in the lower right hand
corner of the source - you will see a field called
"Number of Documents" and a number beside it (15).  If you place your
pointer on this number and hold down the mouse button - a little
window will pop up  - allowing you to change the number of
documents returned from 15 to 50. Thus the user/client CAN change the
number of documents returned (up to 50 anyway).

For XWAIS - if you are using wais-8b5 (not sure about wais-8b4) or later, 
open a question and look at the boxes down the left hand side of the question 
window - you'll see one marked "Prefs".  Click on the Prefs box  and look at 
the resulting options.  One of the options is "Maximum Results" - set that 
variable to the number of documents you want to retrieved from each search, 
I often set it at about 200.  If you are using the X-client from wais-8b3 or 
so it doesn't have this option.  You can either hack the number of results 
retrieved into the code or you can get wais-8b5(+)  (better option).

Happy Holidays,

Dan Jacobson

danj@welchgate.welch.jhu.edu
Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.wais
From: tfiske@qualcom.qualcomm.com (T.J. Fiske)
Subject: WAIStation errors under System 7.1
Keywords: WAIS Station System 7.1 Macintosh
Organization: Qualcomm, Inc., San Diego, CA
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 18:28:22 GMT

Hi WAIS folks,

	Just wanted to share a new bug that I have discovered with the
WAIS Station for the Macintosh.  It seems that the client has trouble with
the new System 7.1 operating system, that causes memory faults which will
crash the computer, and cause you to reboot.  Please be warned about this
before you upgrade your WAIS users to the new operating system.

	Does anyone know of a patch that will be released to fix this problem?

Thanks,

	-- T.J. Fiske

Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.wais
From: barnes@gibbs.oit.unc.edu (James R. Barnes Jr.)
Subject: general wais and wais-station for the mac dox
Organization: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 20:07:52 GMT

Jim Barnes
Technical Editor
Office of Information Technology
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Jim_Barnes@unc.edu

campus box 3460
314-A Wilson Library
Chapel Hill, NC  27599-3460

Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.wais,comp.infosystems.gopher
From: broe@aardvark.ucs.uoknor.edu (Bruce Roe)
Subject: Re: Z39.50 Project Announcement
Originator: usenet@midway.ecn.uoknor.edu
Date: Sun, 27 Dec 1992 14:17:00 GMT
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: University of Oklahoma - University Computing Services

In article <1992Dec23.203300.26379@rock.concert.net>, fullton@jazz.concert.net (Jim Fullton) writes...
> 
>As some of you may know, the U.S. National Science Foundation has funded
>the creation of the Clearinghouse for Networked Information Discovery
>and Retrieval. One of the responsibilities of CNIDR is to promote the
>use and development of tools for discovering and using networked
>information. We have been specifically charged with the task of
>providing an evolutionary path for the public-domain version of WAIS,
>the Wide Area Information Server. Therefore, we have been paying close
>attention to the remarks and "wish lists" provided by the network
>community, and are well into a project to try to fulfill those wishes.

 <cool stuff deleted>

>On the client side, work is progressing on clients for the Macintosh and
>Unix systems, with a PC client in the wings.

I for one would hope that you'all also work on clients for VMS with
Woolongong and Multinet software.

 <more stuff deleted> 

>Jim Fullton
>Clearinghouse for Networked Information Discovery and Retrieval
>Phone: (919)-248-9247  E-mail:  fullton@concert.net
> 

Thanks............Bruce

Merry Christmas!                                              .
         Chappy Channuka!                                    .|,
                  Divine Divali!                             -*-
                           Creative Kwanzaa!                 '|`
                                    Joyous Solstice!          :
                                             Happy Holiday!
  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
 \  Bruce A. Roe               Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry /
 /  University of Oklahoma     INTERNET: BROE@aardvark.ucs.uoknor.edu  \
  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  - - -
From: jonathan@philo.think.com (Jonathan Goldman)
Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.wais
Subject: Re: WAIS server returns *name* of document, rather than document?
Date: 24 Dec 92 12:16:58
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge MA, USA
NNTP-Posting-Host: philo.quake.think.com
In-reply-to: ayers@adobe.com's message of Wed, 23 Dec 1992 01:31:15 GMT

In article <1992Dec23.013115.13255@adobe.com> ayers@adobe.com (Robert Ayers) writes:

   From: ayers@adobe.com (Robert Ayers)
   Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 01:31:15 GMT

   I'm working on a WAIS server that I expected to be used locally, that
   is used on the LAN at Adobe Systems.

   The server will index documents that are already stored within the 
   LAN-accessable NFS file system.

   It strikes me that, rather than having the WAIS-client ask the
   WAIS-server for the "hit" document's content (when the user says
   "View"), the client should ask for the full-path-name of the document
   and read the document itself (with NFS).  Why have the server NFS-read
   the whole document and re-send the bytes down the Z39.50 connection?

You may have already figured this out but...

You can get the filename out of the DOCID:  in the public server the docid
is just a string of "start-offset end-offset filename", so you could modify
a client to just get the file itself, but...

   Do you-all think tht this might be a valuable extension to the WAIS
   protocol?  

You can't depend on this.  For one, it's server specific.  The protocol
simply says that servers understand a docid that they produce.  In fact, on
the CM server the docid's are just indexes into a table on the server.  In
addition, there's no guarantee the files are local, or that the pathnames
are meaningful.  It's a hack you could do when you know the client and
server are on the same LAN, but you must know this for it to work...

And if the client and server are on teh same LAN, why not just do "local
searching".  The clients all have the search engine built-in, and retrieval
will be strictly a "local" operation.

(Local search is accomplished by leaving the :ip-name and :tcp-port fields
empty in the source description structure, and using the full path prefix
for the :database-name.)
--
Jonny Goldman					Thinking Machines Corporation
jonathan@Think.com				1010 El Camino Real Suite 310
Developer					Menlo Park, CA 94025
Wide Area Information Servers			415-329-9300x229
Xref: sparky comp.infosystems.wais:778 news.answers:4764
From: mitra@pandora.sf.ca.us (Mitra)
Subject: Patch for custom format files
Organization: Pandora Systems
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 01:36:30 GMT
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]


I seem to remember talk of a patch that would allow specifying custom
seperators etc for wais files, does any one know where I might find such
a thing.  

I have a large file which I want to specify as a number of Wais
documents, with headlines being parsed out of the text.

- Mitra

Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.wais
From: hardin@dino.mcc.com (John Hardin)
Subject: Re: WAISStation Maximum Results Setting 
Organization: MCC ISD, Austin, Texas
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 12:01:01 GMT

Ann Farny writes:
>  
>  WAISStation 0.6.2 seems to have its maximum results returned
>  setting at 15.  This is very limiting.  Is there any way to
>  increase this?  I am guessing that the "Preferences" menu option,
>  under the File menu, would let me change the setting, but 
>  "Preferences" is always shaded and never seems to be available.
>  
>  Any suggestions?

Yes.  This value is an attribute of the *server*.  It's settable via
WAIStation's Source editor.

-jwh
--
John W. Hardin		    phone:  (512)338-3535
MCC			    email:  hardin@mcc.com
3500 W. Balcones Center Dr  fax:    (512)338-3897
Austin, TX  78759-6509	    uucp:   ...!cs.utexas.edu!milano!hardin

Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.wais,comp.infosystems.gopher
From: fullton@jazz.concert.net (Jim Fullton)
Subject: Re: Z39.50 Project Announcement
Organization: MCNC Center for Communications -- CONCERT Network
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 14:52:24 GMT

In article <27DEC199208173917@aardvark.ucs.uoknor.edu> broe@aardvark.ucs.uoknor.edu (Bruce Roe) writes:
>
> <cool stuff deleted>
>
>>On the client side, work is progressing on clients for the Macintosh and
>>Unix systems, with a PC client in the wings.
>
>I for one would hope that you'all also work on clients for VMS with
>Woolongong and Multinet software.

Well, I've been stunned at the amount of interest my posting generated -
especially over the holidays!  I plan to create a mailing list today
(Monday) or tomorrow to keep all up to date on developments.  I'll post
the relevant info as soon as things are set up.

About VMS - that will be high on our list.  I'm looking for developers
interested in doing specific ports......  The idea is to have a distributed 
development project.



			Jim


>
> <more stuff deleted> 
>
>>Jim Fullton
>>Clearinghouse for Networked Information Discovery and Retrieval
>>Phone: (919)-248-9247  E-mail:  fullton@concert.net
>> 
>
>Thanks............Bruce
>
>Merry Christmas!                                              .
>         Chappy Channuka!                                    .|,
>                  Divine Divali!                             -*-
>                           Creative Kwanzaa!                 '|`
>                                    Joyous Solstice!          :
>                                             Happy Holiday!
>  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> \  Bruce A. Roe               Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry /
> /  University of Oklahoma     INTERNET: BROE@aardvark.ucs.uoknor.edu  \
>  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  - - -