There was another thread on alt.usenet.offline-reader concerning the
inability to repack the news.dat. The suggestion was to use "rebuild -s"
to pack the news.dat. The only problem with this approach was that all
articles were redated with the current date, thus rendering "expire -o"
useless.
If this analysis is correct (I don't know), it should be easy to modify
the program with an additional operand to do the pack without reseting
the import date. Of course, it needs to release the "empty" space
at the back of the news.dat back to the system.
I am loath to try this approach as there doesn't appear to be any
documentation on rebuild except the discussion in the doc about
"rebuild -h".
David
-- David Meade Internet=dmeade@netcom.com Oakland, CA dmeade@slip.net