Short: Fast & low memory UUCP news unbatcher - V0.2 Author: dan@blender.demon.co.uk (Dan Cannon) Uploader: dan@blender.demon.co.uk (Dan Cannon) Type: comm/uucp DanNews - another throbbing Blender Software (BS) production ------------------------------------------------------------ This is DanNews, a UUCP news unbatcher. It needs Kickstart 2.0 or above to work. It's more than twice as fast as RNews 1.16 (found in Demon Internet's AmigaDIS package, amongst other places) and it only takes as much memory as you let it (unlike RNews). If it trashes your news or blows up your computer or destroys the fabric of the universe or something then consider yourself warned. Use at your own risk and all that. But I trust it enough to use it. If you find a bug, send the details to 'dan@blender.demon.co.uk' or maybe ask on 'demon.ip.support.amiga' and I'll be able to sort things out for the next version. Probably. Things added to this version ---------------------------- - Fixed a problem where if you give a negative number for the cache size (this also included the default), it got confused about the amount of free memory so sometimes it wouldn't unbatch the news. - I'm almost sure I've got rid of the Enforcer hit (a long read from $0). But I don't know 'cos I can't run Enforcer. - On a couple of times when I used it, it locked up instead of unbatching the file. I think I fixed that. But I'm not sure about that either (um). - Add some statistics, if you want them, with the STATS switch. Things to add to later versions ------------------------------- - Stop in the middle of unbatching. - Pause in the middle of unbatching. - GUI frontend with progress indicator. - Trim batch file when hard drive space runs out & try again. Bugs ---- - ^C will free most of the memory, but not all of it. - Not really a bug, but DanNews likes the batch file not to be corrupted at all, otherwise it stops with an error. RNews can manage better, but then again it's slower and needs more memory. Installing into AmigaDIS ------------------------ - Copy to UUCP:C. Don't delete RNews - Tin (and maybe other newsreaders) still need it to post articles. - Edit 'DIS:Read_News' and replace 'RNews' with 'DanNews'. If you want you can also put some of the options in too (explained further on). Also it's probably a good idea to put 'failat 10' at the start of the script - 'cos IconX sets it to 100 which turns off error checking and can let your batch file get deleted even if DanNews tries to stop with an error code. - It's done. Have a Chocolate Hobnob. Installing into any other Internet or UUCP package -------------------------------------------------- - Er, dunno. Usage ----- - DanNews FILE/A,CACHE/K/N,STATS/S - FILE/A The file to unbatch. - CACHE/K/N The maximum amount that it can allocate to the cache. If it's positive then the cache will not go above that size - it could very well be less. If it's negative then the cache will be at most that much less than the largest block of memory you have (check with avail). The default is -100000. - STATS/S Display some funky statistics for each group when the unbatch has finished. Examples -------- - DanNews SLIP:Spool/News/batch - DanNews SLIP:Spool/News/batch cache 100000 - DanNews SLIP:Spool/News/batch cache -500000 stats I've got big tips ----------------- The cache must be at least the size of the largest article, otherwise DanNews stop with an error. Unlike RNews it doesn't need to be as large as the entire batch file though. If the news download stops before it should do, it's a good idea to rename the batch file to something else before restarting the download. That way the corrupt article will be at the end and you can load the renamed batch file in an editor to get rid of the last article so it'll unbatch. The junk newsgroup is where articles go when the they're in none of the other newsgroups listed in 'UULIB:newsgroups'. And finally... -------------- This program copyright by me but it's freely distributable. However it's shootwhigfieldware. If you continue to use it after an evaluation period of two weeks then you should attempt to assassinate Whigfield. If you can't do this then burning down at least one of the music stores in your area that sell 'Saturday Night' will suffice. Dan. ============================= Archive contents ============================= Original Packed Ratio Date Time Name -------- ------- ----- --------- -------- ------------- 17176 10584 38.3% 05-Nov-94 14:05:12 DanNews/DanNews 4336 2032 53.1% 05-Nov-94 14:22:54 DanNews/DanNews.readme -------- ------- ----- --------- -------- 21512 12616 41.3% 07-Nov-94 02:20:54 2 files