Re: lynx-dev lynx-2.8.2dev19 commandline parsing question. nntp problems.

[Klaus Weide]

On Tue, 9 Mar 1999, Vlad Harchev wrote:

>   I've decided to work on lynx-2.8.2dev19 commandline handling. IMO lynx 
>   does slightly incorrectly. When it scans for specially-handled options in 
>   'main':LYMain.c , it uses calls like
>       if (strncmp(buf, "-nosocks", 8) == 0)
>   (this way seems to be dominating) for options that don't accept arguments
>   or (less frequently - seems to be newer code)
>       if (strcmp(buf, "-validate") == 0)
>   First way seems incorrect for me - it will accept both "-nosocks" and 
>   "-nosocks-blah-blah-blah". I can correct this ( ie make all calls for 
>   options w/o args to look like  2nd line). Should I?

Will -option- and -option+ still work?

>   It seems that lynx doesn't check whether more than 1 URL is passed in 
>   commandline options (and from stdin): ie 
>     lynx file1.html file2.html
>   is not reported as an error. Should I fix this? If yes, should lynx complain
>   about it and dump "help" or display 1st file?

The last URL/file wins, I'm actually relying on it sometimes.
My strong preference, leave it as it is.

>   I'm having problems with news handling of lynx.
>   When I 'g' to nntp://news.kraft-s.ru, I recieve a screen something like 
>   "No matches for *". There is a newsgroup there named 'kraft.abonents'. When
>   I 'g' to 'nntp://news.kraft-s.ru/kraft.abonents', lynx displays a list
>   of messages of this NG ( ie this nntp server is OK, lynx partially OK).

A problem with the news server.  The commands used by lynx to get a list
of newgroups (XGTITLE, LIST NEWSGROUPS) are implemented by NNTP servers
by listing a file.  But that file is often not maintained properly on
the server side, or may even be missing.  Servers don't enforce that the
file contents is valid or in sync with the groups that are really
available.   (Maybe some servers behave differently.)

>   On the other hand,  when I use Netscape and add this nntpserver to it's 
>   "Discussion Group" or  so, it lists all newsgroups on this nntp server (ie
>   newsserver is surely OK).

So apparently netscape uses a different method to get the list.

>   PS: I'm using lynx-2.8.2dev19.