Usenet gateway

THIS THREAD IS CLOSED!
Posts in here will NOT be answered

This hack has undergone many major changes since this thread was started. Consequently, most of the posts have become dated and of little use. To coincide with the latest major release (20010712), a new one has been started.

See this thread for the latest version and discussion

[fastforward]

I'm assuming it's not happening on all posts right?

My guess is that for whatever reason, it couldn't find the date in the article header. Before the nntppostingdate column was introduced the script used to put the date straight into the dateline column. This dateline value was checked and set to the current date if null. This extra error checking seems to have been forgotten this time.

However, it doesn't explain why there are some articles coming through that the script can't parse. I've not actually seen it happen on my setup, so my guess is it's specific to a newserver and not an article. I did see it now and again when I was using Newsfeeds.com as a provider.

Let me know if you find anything out.

[fastforward]

I've just had another thought about this. The only other thing different between instalations that would affect the date is the version of the Date::Parse module. I use the str2time function from this module to parse the date and convert it into unix time.

There is a similar version number incompatibility with the DBI module and the 'mysql_insertid' function. In the older version, the function was returning null. I was pulling my hair out for weeks over this one as only captnroger had the problem. Then just last week, eric figured it out when he encountered the problem.

[NgtCrwlr]

I think... I found it.

The problem was not posts coming from usenet, it's on the local end when I replied to or started a new thread. What I did was add what I think is missing nntpdateline updates:

newthread.php

      $DB_site->query("INSERT INTO post (postid,threadid,  ..snipped..  ,iconid,visible,nntpdateline) VALUES (NULL,'$threadid','   ..snipped...  ,'$iconid','1','".time()."')");

newreply.php.

	$DB_site->query("INSERT INTO post (postid,threadid,title, ...snipped... ,iconid,visible,nntpdateline,inreplyto) VALUES (NULL,'$threadid','".addslashes(htmlspecialchars($title))."', ....snipped...,'$iconid','$visible','".time()."','$inreplyto')");

Unless I'm missing something I think that's it? At least it seems to work right so far. I'm still waiting on usenet propagation to see what they look like externally.

[fastforward]

You're right. I was just about to say it's in the instructions as a necessary code change, but I just went and checked and it's not there. That's exactly what I have on my setup though, so I guess I forgot to put it in the instructions. ooops

I intend to put up another little release tomorrow to include gilbys fix so I'll fix the instructions at the same time.

I've also got another little option that allows you to reduce the font size of quotes. I think it makes the posts easier to read. I've put it on dbforums.com already so you can see what I mean.

[NgtCrwlr]

The quote option sounds great.

One other tiny problem you may want to fix is in newnews.pl
When doing a history pull and all articles on a run are not available last msg: counter does not increment and has to be updated by hand.

Also, it would be nice if when there are no messages in a group that the program would skip checking orphans and jump right to the next group. With a lot of groups I think that little diddy would speed things a bit.

Don't want to load you down again Paul, I just thought you might want to know about these being that you are updating again so soon.

Cheers!
-Larry

[mcncyo]

I am getting this problem

Query failed:
INSERT LOW_PRIORITY INTO post (title,allowsmilie,threadid,dateline,nntpdateline, pagetext,visible
,msgid,ord,username,userid,nntpfrom,ipaddress,isus enetpost) VALUES ('What is required for salvat
ion?',1,,990971890,990207918,'What do I need to do, be or whatever to be "saved"?\n','1','<3B055
FD2.88A00F0C@hotmail.com>','0','Tim',0,'Tim #timothyb24@hotmail.com#',0,1)

DBD::mysql::db do failed: You have an error in your SQL syntax near '990971890,990207918,'What d
o I need to do, be or whatever to be "saved"?\n','1',' at line 1 at ./newnews.pl line 609.

[QUOTE]

[fastforward]

Originally posted by cyo
I am getting this problem
....

update your DBI module. The version you have is not returning the threadid.

[fastforward]

Originally posted by NgtCrwlr
The quote option sounds great.

One other tiny problem you may want to fix is in newnews.pl
When doing a history pull and all articles on a run are not available last msg: counter does not increment and has to be updated by hand.

I think someone else had this problem and I couldn'd understand what they meant. However, I switched news serrvers this weekend and re-pulled all news and I saw the problem with my own eyes. I'll get on it.

I hope to get all these fixes done today and a new release out. If not today, definately tomorrow.

[NgtCrwlr]

While I was validating the output HTML I found that signatures from usenet messages can have invalid characters like (&, and high ASCII chars). htmlentities() action needed?

Also, I would like to see a nl2br in usenet signatures.

Oh-oh I think I hooked a big one!

I knew something wasn't quite right with... function update_last_active_thread because I have one thread title that displays B& amp;W Album. Looking into it further I think I see what is happening.

In function update_last_active_thread you are using
addslashes(htmlspecialchars($lastactivethread))
Unfortunately htmlspecialchars is not needed because vB has already preformed special character conversion and stores it converted in the DB.

This caused me to look further and I found that newnews.pl saves the thread title to the DB without processing for special characters. That would be OK if vB did it that way too.

Paul, tell me I'm wrong... please! If I'm not wrong this means a total purge of all usenet posts and new history pull. This is not that big of a deal for me because I don't have many posting users. Although the news feed I use is terribly slow.

God I love this stuff!

Cheers!
-Larry

The download link disappeared. In fact, so did the site. Could be down for maintenance but I'd love to get hold of this hack and implement on my system.