Newsgroups: news.software.b
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: How do I get out of this mess?
Message-ID: <1990Dec30.034358.11271@zoo.toronto.edu>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <1990Dec29.040728.8886@intacc.uucp>
Date: Sun, 30 Dec 90 03:43:58 GMT

In article <1990Dec29.040728.8886@intacc.uucp> mann@intacc.UUCP (Jeff Mann) writes:
>Now I have a slew of duplicate articles, and I am wondering how to get
>rid of them. What will happen if I try to rebuild the history file
>with mkhistory - will the duplicate message id's screw up the database?

No.  In fact, mkhistory sees any cross-posted article repeatedly, and
merges all the entries for it during the rebuild.  That will get you a
history file that matches your article tree, so the duplicate articles
will expire normally.

The new "addmissing" program, unfortunately, will balk at adding lines
for duplicate articles.  Otherwise it would be quicker.  Possibly I
should do something about that.
-- 
"The average pointer, statistically,    |Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
points somewhere in X." -Hugh Redelmeier| henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry
