fronttalk: getting new items = 0

May 11 13:58 UTC 2019

In case this is of interest or use to anyone:

I went on long tangent trying to get new items for all conferences to
zero.  Skipping to the end ... I used the following steps & script which
worked for most of the conferences except:  

3 conferences had 1 or more files with inconsistent permissions.

10 conferences had mismatches between the /cyberspace/grex/bbs/ 
directory name and ~/.cfdir/ file name. 

More details of exceptions after the script.

#### script start ####

grex$ cat bt-cfdir-recreate.bash 
#!/usr/local/bin/bash

cat <<'end'

These steps can be used to recreate the ~/.cfdir such that
for most of the existing conference all items will be marked 
unread. For 10 of the 105 conferences listed in the entrance
page this failed due to a name mismatch between between the
/cyberspace/grex/bbs/ directory name and ~/.cfdir/ file name.  
Read items for such conferences manually. Stderr output will
identify such conferences.

Before running this script do steps 1-3 manually.

1 move ~/.cfdir (delete later if all goes well)

2 open backtalk from a browser
  logon
  open each conference (no need to view any items)
  this creates .<conference>.cf files

3 cd ~/.cfdir
  ls -a .*.cf > ~/conflist.txt
  this creates a list of the file names

4 run this script

5 run the script described at & review the thead:
  Grex > Garage > #45: Backtalk Crash > Response #23

  For each name in $cfdirlst/conflist.txt this script parses 
  the bbs files at /cyberspace/grex/bbs/ to populate the file
  of the same name in ~/.cfdir. The lines added should result 
  in no conference items marked as unread when using backtalk
  (as of the time the files are created). 

  At the top of the script, edit the variables as desired.
  as desired.  To protect from an unintended result the script 
  will exit if ~/.cfdir exists. All other files in .cfdir 
  will be recreated by backtalk.

end

read -p 'Enter to continue or Ctrl+C to abort. '

cname='Bruce Hohl'        # your name here
cfdirlst='conflist.txt'   # see above

mkdir ~/.cfdir || { echo "Exiting script: move ~/.cfdir"; exit 1; }
chmod 777 ~/.cfdir  # must be accessible by cfadm/backtalk 

cd /cyberspace/grex/bbs/

while read d1; do 
    dn=${d1#.}; dn=${dn%.cf}  
    # convert to name used at /cyberspace/grex/bbs/
    # for the find command below

    echo '!<pr03>'  > ~/.cfdir/$d1
    echo "$cname"   >> ~/.cfdir/$d1
 
    for d2 in $(find $dn -name _[0-9]* -maxdepth 1); do
        f1="${d2##*_}"              # item_id
        f2="$(grep -c ^,R $d2)"     # post+responses
        f3="0"                      # last update
        echo "$f1 $f2 $f3" >> ~/.cfdir/$d1
    done

done < ~/$cfdirlst

# sort contents of files ascending (in case that matters)
ctmp=$(mktemp)
for f in ~/.cfdir/.*; do 
    > $ctmp; sort -g $f > $ctmp; cp $ctmp $f
done

# not sure why temp files appeared in various places
rm $ctmp ~/$(basename $ctmp) ~/.cfdir/$(basename $ctmp)

exit 0

#### script end ####

-------------------------------------------------------
Script errors and notes: 
-------------------------------------------------------
(1) Script errors:

Some permissions errors uncovered:
(would be nice to have these fixed)

grep: backtalk2/_4: Permission denied      fixme (a) 
grep: music4/_1: Permission denied         fixme (a) 
grep: music4/_2: Permission denied         fixme (a)
grep: music4/_4: Permission denied         fixme (a)
grep: music4/_7: Permission denied         fixme (a)
grep: politics/_123: Permission denied     fixme (a) (b)


Unfortunate mismatches between the /cyberspace/grex/bbs/ 
directory name and ~/.cfdir/ file name. Read items for 
these conferences manually.
(would be nice to avoid this going forward)

find: books1: No such file or directory    books
find: cars1: No such file or directory     cars
find: class1: No such file or directory    classified
find: cyberp: No such file or directory    cyberpunk
find: drfuz: No such file or directory     drfuzzy
find: fixit: No such file or directory     diy
find: inet: No such file or directory      internet
find: lang1: No such file or directory     language
find: synth: No such file or directory     synthesis
find: vomit: No such file or directory     regurge


(2) the script leaves empty tmp files in ~/ and ~/.dfdir
    not sure why ...

(a) Edit the .<conf>.cf file for these items to: item_id 0 0
    Otherwise the entrance page will not load.

(b) Got this error attempting to open Politics:
    ERROR: Bad magic number in item file 
    /cyberspace/grex/bbs/politics/_123 executing 
    "read_item" on line 272 of abalone/confhome.bt

response 2 of 5:

May 12 13:04 UTC 2019

I got to new items = 0 with Fronttalk the old fashioned way. :)

response 4 of 5:

May 12 21:23 UTC 2019

You effort was praise-worthy. Congratulations. :)