4.3 Batching

Since news articles are usually short, and since a large number of messages are often sent between two sites in a day, it may make sense to batch news articles. Several articles can be combined into one large article, using conventions agreed upon in advance by the two sites. One such batching scheme is described here; its use is still considered experimental.

News articles are combined into a script, separated by a header of the form:

     ##! rnews 1234

where 1234 is the length, in bytes, of the article. Each such line is followed by an article containing the given number of bytes. (The newline at the end of each line of the article is counted as one byte, for purposes of this count, even if it is stored as CRLF.) For example, a batch of articles might look like this:

      #! rnews 374
      Relay-Version: version B 2.10 2/13/83; site cbosgd.UUCP
      Posting-Version: version B 2.10 2/13/83; site eagle.UUCP
      Path: cbosgd!mhuxj!mhuxt!eagle!jerry
      From: jerry@eagle.uucp (Jerry Schwarz)
      Newsgroups: net.general
      Subject: Usenet Etiquette -- Please Read
      Message-ID: <642@eagle.UUCP>
      Date: Friday, 19-Nov-82 16:14:55 EST

      Here is an important message about USENET Etiquette.
      #! rnews 378
      Relay-Version: version B 2.10 2/13/83; site cbosgd.UUCP
      Posting-Version: version B 2.10 2/13/83; site eagle.UUCP
      Path: cbosgd!mhuxj!mhuxt!eagle!jerry
      From: jerry@eagle.uucp (Jerry Schwarz)
      Newsgroups: net.followup
      Subject: Notes on Etiquette article
      Message-ID: <643@eagle.UUCP>
      Date: Friday, 19-Nov-82 17:24:12 EST

      There was something I forgot to mention in the last message.

Batched news is recognized because the first character in the message is "#". The message is then passed to the unbatcher for interpretation.