Re: lynx-dev Problems with -traversal

[Klaus Weide]

On Wed, 18 Nov 1998, Francis Irving wrote:

> With -traversal, Lynx keeps traversing the same page over and over again.
> I'm using version 2.8.1rel.1, the Win32 port (downloaded today from
> http://www.fdisk.com/doslynx/wlynx/lynx_w32.zip).  
> 
> Example. with an empty current directory type: 
> 
> > lynx -traversal http://www.meta.demon.co.uk
> 
> Lynx gets stuck in an infinite loop, and generates two files
> 
> [d:\sitetest]type traverse.dat
> http://www.meta.demon.co.uk/
> http://www.meta.demon.co.uk/i.html
> http://www.meta.demon.co.uk/index.html
> http://www.meta.demon.co.uk/i.html
> http://www.meta.demon.co.uk/index.html
> http://www.meta.demon.co.uk/i.html
> 
> [d:\sitetest]type traverse2.dat
> http://www.meta.demon.co.uk/    Francis's page
> http://www.meta.demon.co.uk/i.html      I
> http://www.meta.demon.co.uk/index.html  Francis's page
> http://www.meta.demon.co.uk/i.html      I
> http://www.meta.demon.co.uk/index.html  Francis's page
> http://www.meta.demon.co.uk/i.html      I
> http://www.meta.demon.co.uk/index.html  Francis's page
> http://www.meta.demon.co.uk/i.html      I
> 
> which repeat in this way.
> 
> I didn't have the same problem with an earlier pre-release of the same
> version.

When I try this with 2.8.1rel.2 (with some unrelated changes), on linux,
I get the following: the starting page is displayed, then the message
   unable to open traversal found file: No such file or directory
is displayed and Lynx exits without restoring the tty settings (leaving
icanon and echo off). The directory now contains one new file with two lines:
$ cat traverse.dat
http://www.meta.demon.co.uk/
http://www.meta.demon.co.uk/i.html

and with permissions -rw-------.

When I try again without removing that file, the message
   unable to open reject file: No such file or directory
appears somewhere on the screen, and again Lynx exits without restoring
the tty settings.  

It appears there alre problems introduced by replacing fopen() calls
in LYTraversal.c with calls to LYNewTxtFile() and LYAppendToTxtFile().
More specifically, at least the LYAppendToTxtFile() calls in
add_to_traverse_list() and add_to_reject_list() don't act the same way
as the fopen(..,"a+") calls appearing in the same place in previous
versions of LYTraversal.c.  Maybe they fail because the files don't
exist, or because they are not given as full pathnames:

#define TRAVERSE_FILE "traverse.dat"
#define TRAVERSE_FOUND_FILE "traverse2.dat"
#define TRAVERSE_REJECT_FILE "reject.dat"
#define TRAVERSE_ERRORS "traverse.errors"

A solution or workaround may be to revert LYTraversal.c to what it
was in previous versions.  I don't see a point in doing paranoid
file permission checks on these files anyway.  I also don't see
the point in leaving them with restrictive permissions; they are
user files, not files for internal use by lynx, and they would not
normally be in /tmp/, so the normal umask should apply.

Also, the functions in LYTraversal.c should call stop_curses() before
exiting (maybe only if LYCursesON is set).

Note that these problems may be separate from Francis Irving's
problems.  The platform is not the same, and this is 2.8.1rel.2
vs. his 2.8.1rel.1.

   Klaus