Subj : NewsGate kludge lines.
To   : All
From : Marc Lewis
Date : Sun Jul 22 2001 11:51 am

 Hello All.

 For several years now I have been using the NewsGate program to bring in
 selected newsgroups to the board.  There has always been a nasty quirk in the
 program though.  Telling the program (via its config utility) to add botha
 seen-by and a path line results in Squish (and possibly other tossers as
 well) complaining vigorously about "No Seen-By" in the messages.

 Reason for this is NewsGate does insert the Seen-By as it should after the
 Origin line.  But the path line is inserted *without* the required ^a in
 front of it.  The tosser is completely "blind" to the line because of this.

 I tried several utilities to correct the problem on the fly; no luck.  ThenI
 "got to thinking"... Hmmm.  GSAR. (General Search and Replace).  An excellent
 grep utility (FreeWare) that can do this *without* grunging the .pkt.  Here's
 how I went about it.

 First off, I turn off the "insert path" option in NewsGate's configuration.
 NewsGate's packets are generally too large to begin with, sometimes
 containing several thousands of messages.  I use PKTSORT to split the .pkt
 files down to about 150 messages each resultant .pkt.  Then I call GSAR to
 look at the .pkt files and do its "magic".  Here's the segment from my batch
 file that does it:

 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-CUT-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
 CD \NEWS-IN
 IF EXIST *.PKT C:\UTL\PKTSORT -cC:\UTL\PKTSORT.CFG

 {Note!  These lines are WRAPPED by the message editor!}

 FOR %%a IN (*.PKT) DO GSAR -sSEEN-BY:::032396/4
 ..................The Newsgate node number^^^^^
 -rSEEN-BY:::032396/4:013:001PATH:::032396/4 %%a -o
 ..line feed character^^^ ^^^the "^a" character  ^^the overwrite command

 {End of subroutine}

 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-CUT-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

 (Hopefully this will make it through without being broken up too badly by
 message readers!)  If it does get chewed up to the point you have trouble
 deciphering it, drop me a netmail and I'll send you the sample file.

 Works like a champ!  Squish no longer complains!

 Best regards,
 Marc
 telnet://bbs.sursum-corda.com

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