Ahocda.163
net.news.b
utzoo!decvax!duke!harpo!floyd!vax135!houxi!hocda!tjt
Tue Apr 27 15:13:20 1982
Apparent bug in readr.c

One of our users tried the "s" command to save an article (giving the name
of a file in which to save it), followed by an "r" command to reply to its
author.  The result (in 2.6 readnews) was that the mailing address for the
reply had the saved file name embedded in it.  I traced the problem to an
uninitialized string in readr.c.  Around line 415, there is a declaration
for "curberk".  It should be initialized with the statement:

                        *curberk = '\0';

I tried this change and it eliminated the problem.  I have seen this type
of problem many times before, and it seems to surface mainly on 11/70's (on
which we are running ...sigh).  I assume that on VAXen the space allocated
to local variables is usually zeroed out, although I do not believe this is
guaranteed.

One question: what is the best way to fix this without screwing up any
future updates via "diff" scripts?  (I guess this applies to any fix).
Should I put it on the same line as an existing statement, leaving the line
counts the same, or should I not make the change at all?  Mark?
(Forgive me if this has been answered before.)
                                      ===Tim Thompson===BTL/Holmdel===

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