Hi! Richard,

On 21 Apr 09 13:36, you wrote to me:

 PQ>> Now I'm using Google Groups but they only distribute digests in
 PQ>> email.  :(

 RW> Not surprised, newsgroup service is much poorer than it was. Hate to
 RW> say it, and not quite topical here but google is a real problem with
 RW> the spammers in a lot of those I read because they don't filter them
 RW> out at all, in fact many originate from google groups. curious how
 RW> many spams you see for knockoff designer clothing and shoes made in
 RW> China in those google digests, because we sure see 'em in the raw
 RW> newsgroup feeds.

I recall seeing maybe one or two, surprisingly in a NASA NG... I think. 
But, they were in amongst a hundred-or-so other real posts.  No great
hassle.  It don't matter as they're just for my reading pleasure.  I don't
export those posts.  (In fact I propose to use my batch splitter, using
Mpost, to set the 'sent' attribute on posts that it makes, so that they
cannot ever be exported.)

 PQ>> Okay.  Mmm... I use a special email address and a Fido email
 PQ>> handler called "Transnet" (which has its own Fido
address) to do

[ ...trim... ]

 RW> I've got that here, and will eventually set it up, but I"ve
 RW> only the one email address and would be a pita.

Ooh, just noticed that the author's site is back up:

  http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mressl/transnet/index.html

Transnet is still 'open-source' and he has a later source archive available
there!  :)

 PQ>> [ ...I understood about a fifth of that... ]
 RW> 
 RW> LEt's see if I can help you out with this.
 RW> FIrst we're looking for the line which has (tm) in it, as
 RW> that's the start of the actual text.  THen we stuff that
 RW> line number into an environment variable as in ...
 RW> type newsline.txt | find "(TM)" /i /n >> getstart.txt

Okay...

 RW> :: remove the brackets around the line number using chg.
 RW> chg /i getstart.txt /s [91] /r ""
 RW> chg /i getstart.txt /s [93] /r [32]
 RW> nset first=$1 < getstart.txt
 RW> del getstart.txt

Yep, a sort of 'replace' tool...

 RW> sed -n %FIRST%,$p > newsline.out
 RW> del newsline.txt
 RW> ren newsline.out newsline.txt
 RW> ::remove some mime strangeness which happens when the fellow forwards
 RW> me amateur radio newsline.
 RW> chg /i newsline.txt /s =20 /r ""

Ooh, sweet...

(Transnet does that itself, BTW.)

 RW> echo. >> newsline.txt
 RW> :: append advert telling folks to be aware that urls may not :: show
 RW> up correctly and thanking the poster, etc.
 RW> type c:\robotext\newsline.ftr >> newsline.txt
 RW> move newsline.txt c:\staging
 RW> :: split it up into pieces and post from this point.
 RW>> call postnews.bat

(I hope I've re-constructed your batch correctly, as there was some wierd
paragraphing going on in the editor.  No doubt it'll get worse with this
reply. ;-)

 RW>> NOw we go into postnews where we find out how many pieces we have
 RW>> of newsline.txt

 RW> YEp, newsline.txt is now newsline.001, newsline.002, etc.
 RW> sO, we find out how many files we have, stuff that number
 RW> into environment variable, branch and post.

Uh, huh.  That's what I'd figured.  I'll be doing the same thing, except
one-at-a-time postings, as the batch dawdles down through the text file a
line at a time... rather than as a bunch of posts as you're doing.

Thanks again, Richard.

Cheers,
Paul.

... Sleep is an inadequate substitute for caffeine.
--- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.4.7