From: S_BLESS@IRAV1.ira.uka.de (|S| Roland Bless)
Newsgroups: alt.sys.amiga.uucp
Subject: Re: ARn problems
Date: 5 Jan 1993 10:21:03 GMT
Organization: University of Karlsruhe, FRG
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: irav1.ira.uka.de
X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS 1.25

In <gXyds*8Q0@kink.PhaedraV.On.Ca> hugh@kink.PhaedraV.On.Ca writes:

> The active file is guaranteed to *not* be sorted with most news s/w
> and utilities. Even if you add a hack to re-sort it after each

I know that most news s/w doesn't guarantee a sorted active-file.

> automatic or semi-automatic change there will still be times when it
> is unsorted unless you start doing locking on the active file and arn.
> That's silly.

I don't think it's silly:
1. I changed it because Arn starts up faster by using binary search.
   This is especially significant if you have a large active-file.
2. The active-file isn't changed so often (unless you have all groups),
   so sorting it with the standard sort program is faster than 
   letting Arn sort it everytime it starts up.
 
> If arn must have a sorted file it should do the sorting on its own
> private, temporary copy of the active file. If the active file is
> several thousand lines long that's a significant waste of space and
> arn's sorted copy will still get out of date unless you use
> notification to tell arn when it has to make a new copy and resort it.

Get serious: If you have a large active-file, let it be 100kB, you 
should have the resources to have another 100kB for the sorted copy!!
Naturally, things like notification and locking are required then.
 
> A much better solution is to change arn so it does not require the
> file to be sorted.

Yes, I'll implement at least a check for sorting and automatic resort if
necessary.

> Newsreader writers should take note, too that Cnews defines a standard
> article reference file format for newsreaders to use for indexing,
> threading, etc. It will already exist at sites running Cnews and all
> the different newsreaders don't have to waste the space adding their
> own. The emacs GNUS reader is the only one with an Amiga port that I
> know uses it. tin should too, does it?

Were can I find documentation about this file format?
Arn nevertheless uses databases for fast overviews of articles, which
isn't possible with the Cnews databases alone.

> Oh oh, another SAS user. :-)
> If arn used to still support 1.3, I think you will find that the SAS
> 6.0 compiled version won't any more. Knowing SAS another set of bug
> fixes will be out RSN, I'm sure.
> 
> Instead of using any compiler it's a lot easier to just sit back and
> post about what everybody should be doing. :-) I do appreciate
> everyone's efforts, and especially the code that works well enough
> that I can end up using it, and is clean enough that I can end up
> hacking it.

The source of Arn will be released with next versions.

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