Bug in time spec in HDB /usr/lib/uucp/Systems file

[Lenny Tropiano]

In article <614 at uncle.UUCP> jbm at uncle.UUCP (John B. Milton) writes:
|>Surprise! If you put "Never" or "Nvr" or "DON'T" in the second field of
|>the /usr/lib/uucp/Systems file (HDB only), it will consider it the SAME AS
|>"Any". Yes, people on your system can poll those long distance sites! Ok,
|>go ahead do a strings on /usr/lib/uucp/uucico and look around the "Su", "Wk"
|>and "Any" strings. Don't see "Never" there do you? Well, there is a solution.
|>There is an optional subfield on the time field, which when present 
|>substitutes fixed retry time for the normal, exponential back retry time. 
|>When this subfield is present, the lack of a legal time string works the 
|>same as "Never"
|>
...
Hmm, this I think is wrong.  "Never" works just fine for me, on the UNIX pc
and every version of HDB I know of.  True, the "Never" string doesn't 
show up in the "string dump" because it doesn't have to.

The function in HDB that checks the syntax of the second field will check
the for the following (in various combinations):

		SaSuMoTuWeThFr = Saturday through Friday, respectively
		Wk             = Weekday (same as MoTuWeThFr)
		Any            = Any day
		Time Range     = Valid time range to call
				 eg. SaSu,Wk2300-0700, Any, Any2300-0700,
				     Wk2300-0700,Sa1700-0700,Su

If this function fails any of these cases, the validity of the time to call 
the system is FAILED.  If it doesn't pass any of those conditions, it's
also the "WRONG TIME TO CALL".  Therefore, anything that isn't valid in that 
field (including Never, Nvr, DON'T, etc..) will return the "WRONG TIME TO CALL"
The time field can also crossover 0000 (midnight) and that will be handled
correctly.  The fields can be separated by a non-alpha character (traditionally
"," as shown above in my examples) but not "/" which is used traditionally for 
delimiting the "grade" value which isn't supported in the HDB available 
for the UNIX pc.  And traditionally the minimum retry time is the value
after the ";" (eg.  Any;5 [set retry to 5 minutes])

The Systems entry can be as small as:

system Never

But is required to have at least those fields, I believe.

$ /usr/lib/uucp/Uutry system
mchFind called (system)
conn(system)
Wrong Time To Call: Never
Call Failed: WRONG TIME TO CALL
exit code 101
Conversation Complete: Status FAILED

Hope this clears up your problem ...
-Lenny
-- 
| Lenny Tropiano            ICUS Software Systems      [w] +1 (516) 589-7930 |
| lenny at icus.islp.ny.us     Telex; 154232428 ICUS      [h] +1 (516) 968-8576 |
| {ames,pacbell,decuac,hombre,sbcs,attctc}!icus!lenny     attmail!icus!lenny |
+------- ICUS Software Systems -- PO Box 1;  Islip Terrace, NY  11752 -------+