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Annotation of 43BSD/contrib/nntp/doc/mkgrdates.8c, revision 1.1.1.1

1.1       root        1: .TH MKGRDATES 8C "26 October 1985"
                      2: .UC 4
                      3: .SH NAME
                      4: mkgrdates \- Make the newsgroup creation date file
                      5: for the NNTP server
                      6: .SH SYNOPSIS
                      7: .B /usr/spool/news/lib/mkgrdates
                      8: .SH DESCRIPTION
                      9: .I Mkgrdates
                     10: maintains the newsgroup creation date file for the
                     11: Network News Transfer Protocol server (which uses
                     12: the newsgroup creation date file for the NEWGROUPS
                     13: command).  When executed,
                     14: .I mkgrdates
                     15: goes through the active file
                     16: (usually
                     17: .IR /usr/spool/news/lib/active )
                     18: and creates a file
                     19: (usually
                     20: .IR /usr/spool/news/lib/groupdates )
                     21: containing the creation dates and times of the
                     22: newsgroups in the active file.  The
                     23: .I groupdates
                     24: file has one line for each newsgroup, in the form
                     25: ``date newsgroup'' where ``date'' is the newsgroup's
                     26: creation time, in seconds since midnight, Jan. 1,
                     27: 1970, GMT,
                     28: and ``newsgroup'' is the name of the newsgroup in question.
                     29: .PP
                     30: Since generating the
                     31: .I groupdates
                     32: file is expensive, when
                     33: .I mkgrdates
                     34: is run it creates a file (usuaully
                     35: .IR /usr/spool/news/lib/mkgdstats )
                     36: containing the length, in bytes, of the active file.
                     37: The next time
                     38: .I mkgrdates
                     39: is invoked, it compares the contents of the
                     40: .I mkgdstats
                     41: file against the length of the active file, and
                     42: exits if these lengths are the same.  If the
                     43: lengths are not the same, it rebuilds the
                     44: .I groupdates
                     45: file, and sets the
                     46: .I mkgdstats
                     47: file to the appropriate value.
                     48: This scheme avoids a fair amount of what would
                     49: essentially be wasted computing.
                     50: .PP
                     51: .I Mkgrdates
                     52: should be run once or twice a day by an entry in
                     53: .I /usr/lib/crontab
                     54: .SH BUGS
                     55: It would be good to get rid of this and have the
                     56: news server do it, but nobody seems to be able
                     57: to come up with an easy, inexpensive way.
                     58: I'm certainly open to suggestions.
                     59: .SH AUTHOR
                     60: Phil Lapsley
                     61: .SH SEE ALSO
                     62: cron(1),
                     63: nntpd(8C)

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