Re: [Q] expiry of newsgroup (newbie)

From: Michael Gray (labrat@onr.com)
Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 07:25:24 -0500

On Sat, 12 Jul 97 11:01:28 +0200,
mattiac@mailbox.dsnet.it wrote this about [Q] expiry of newsgroup (newbie):
>Hello, Yarn people!
>
>I just can't understand how messages expire in yarn. There are three
>numbers after each newsgroup in the "active" file, one is the keep, one is
>the max-keep, and what is the other one? Ho do they work? The keep should
>delete message older than n days (every time the expire -o is run), but
>sometimes it doesn't. Then, what is the max-keep?

Actually there's only 2 numbers you're referring to. The first number
that appears is "shorthand" used by yarn to separate similarly named
newsgroups. I don't know exactly where it's used by yarn, but it's
there for a reason I suppose. I've got one in my active (happens to be
pseudonewsgroups, but could be actual newsgroups.)

hand.list hlist.0 7 31
humor.list hlist.1 7 31

Now for an explanation of Maxkeep from english.doc.

Two settings are associated with each newsgroup. One is the number of
days that articles in the newsgroup will be kept before the expire
program deletes them. The other is the absolute maximum number of days
that articles with an Expires: header will be kept. The Expires: header
may contain a date far in the future, but the article will be kept only
for the specified number of days.

So, you could have an article that has an Expires: date of 12/31/99,
but it will get purged after 30 days (or whatever your maxkeep is set
to.) The Expires: line isn't used too often, but it could clog up
your newsbase if maxkeep isn't set.

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