Two RN questions

[Conor P. Cahill]

In article <461 at spot.wbst128.xerox.com> jeyadev at monolith.UUCP () writes:
>Could someone help me out on these two issues, please?
>
>1) When one includes someone else's posting in one's own (by using the F
>command), RN gives a reference to the quoted article, as in the case given
>below
>
>In article <2355 at crdos1.crd.ge.COM> davidsen at crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen) writes:
>>In article <1990Jul18.143444.11849 at eagle.lerc.nasa.gov> xxrich at alliant1.lerc.nasa.gov (Rich Rinehart) writes:
>
>What do those cryptic account "names" 2355 and 1990Jul18.143444.11849 mean?

These aren't names.  They are message id's.   Some news systems generate 
very short message id's (bnews is one) while others (namely cnews) generate
the longer YYYYMMMDDD.lots.of.stuff kind.

This doesn't mean anything.  It is just a way to ensure a unique identifier
for each message (this is used by your news software to check and see if you
(as in your system) have gotten the message already.  If so, the news software
will through it away.

>2) When I change my mind and abort an article, RN creates a file in my
>login directory called .article. What does this file do? Does it get 
>overwritten when the next article is posted?

This file is just a place for aborted articles (although I thought it was
put into dead.article, not .article (.article is used while building the
article)).  Newly aborted articles are appended to the file.


-- 
Conor P. Cahill            (703)430-9247        Virtual Technologies, Inc.,
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