Mark Moraes:
Compile and install expire/updatemin.  Then, wherever you run doexpire
(usually from cron), run updatemin after that.  Many newsreaders will find
this useful.  (I usually run doexpire from another local script called
runexpire that does a df, then runs expire, then runs updatemin, then
nnadmin =EYW and backact (for nn) ).
  
(updatemin may need -DBERKDIR when compiling if your system has the older
BSD sys/dir.h predecessor to dirent.  It should work fine as it stands on
most modern Un*xes.)
  
There's an older and much slower upact script that does the same thing, but
it's only advisable if you have a really fast machine or a small active file
(e.g. a hundred or so newsgroups.)
  
Be warned that articles with long expire times or floods of cancels (as in
clari.*) and emergency sysadmin intervention (rm newsgroup/* :-) can cause
large "holes" in the numbering space, so it isn't safe to assume that one
can calculate the number of articles accurately from the third field.
Programs should be prepared to scan the directory and check for themselves.

------------------------------

ws.

Henry Spencer:
For a long time, C News's checkgroups handler was broken, partly because
there was no clear specification of the syntax and semantics of the
checkgroups message.  The current C News release contains a completely
redone checkgroups handler that is believed to be correct.

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