From rsalz@rodan.UU.NET Sun Sep 20 05:39:39 1992
From: rsalz@rodan.UU.NET (Rich Salz)
Newsgroups: news.software.nntp
Subject: Re: Another question regarding INN
Date: 18 Sep 92 13:21:35 GMT
Organization: UUNET Technologies Inc, Falls Church, VA
NNTP-Posting-Host: rodan.uu.net

In <1992Sep18.004420.5225@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> chohan@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Harpal Chohan) writes:
|     4.   If Distribution header does not match, and any  distrib
|          started  with an exclamation point, then the article is
|          sent.
|Is this saying that if the contents of the header don't match any
|of the /distribs in the site's entry, but if there exists anything
|of the form "!foo" (say /distrib1,distrib2,!foo), the article would
|be sent to that site anyway, even if the header didn't match "distrib1"
|or "distrib2"? Why?
It is almost definitely a mistake for you to mix /foo,bar and /!foo,!bar
styles of patterns.  I will make this more obvious in the docs.  Perhaps
I should even make it illegal?

To answer the question, however:  because it is the only reasonable way to
act.
    1.  Suppose you have "/foo,bar" then an article with Distribution foo
	or bar should be sent; an article with Distribution bletch should
	not be sent.  This is the "most correct" way of handling distri-
	butions:  a site tells you exactly what they want.  Without
	getting into politics, I'll just say that some people find it hard
	to do this.

    2.  Suppose you have "/!foo,!bar" then clearly bletch should be sent
	and foo should not.  This is sort of the "all,!local" case.  Again
	avoiding politics, many people want to be able to say "give out
	everything but local articles."

    3.  Now, suppose you have "/foo,!bar".  Foo should be sent, and bar
	should not be sent.  What about bletch?  By rule 1, don't send
	it -- it does not match the specified distributions.  By rule 2
	you should send it -- it doesn't match any of the ones you told
	it not to.  You can go either way.  INN picks rule 2.