$Id: Release-Notes-1.4.txt,v 1.4 1995/11/08 01:30:22 duane Exp $

                            TABLE OF CONTENTS

	1. Gatherer
		C version of ftpget
		Rewriting the URL with post-processing
		Deleting objects with post-processing
		Generating RootNode/LeafNode URLs from a program
		NewsArticle.sum TTLs

	2. Broker
        	#Restart-Index-Server command 
        	Specifically setting GlimpseServer_Port

	3. Miscellaneous
		Solaris and -lmalloc


========================================================================

GATHERER

    C version of ftpget
    -------------------

	The 'ftpget' program has been rewritten in C.  The Perl version
	caused coredumps for a number of users.  The C version should
	be more reliable and efficient.

    Rewriting the URL with post-processing
    --------------------------------------

	Post-processing rules were introduced in version 1.3.  At that
	time it was only possible to change attributes within a SOIF
	template.  It may also be useful to change the URL associated
	with the SOIF template.

	A number of users have asked for the ability to gather objects
	from their HTTP server as file:// URLs but have them appear
	in the broker as http:// URLs.  This can be done with a post-
	processing rule such as:

		url ~ 'file://localhost/web/htdocs/'
			url | fix-url.pl

	And the 'fix-url.pl' script might look like:

		#!/usr/local/bin/perl -p
		s'file://localhost/web/htdocs/'http://www.my.domain/';


    Deleting objects with post-processing
    -------------------------------------

	It is now possible to entirely delete an object with post-
	processing rules.  This is done with the 'delete()' instruction.
	For example:

		keywords ~ /Limbaugh/
			delete()


    Generating RootNode/LeafNode URLs from a program
    ------------------------------------------------

	It is now possible to generate RootNode or LeafNode URLs
	automatically from program output.  This might be useful when
	gathering a large number of Usenet newsgroups, for example.  The
	program is specified inside the RootNode or LeafNode section,
	preceded by a pipe symbol.

		<LeafNodes>
		|generate-news-urls.sh
		</LeafNodes>

	The script must output valid URLs, such as

		news:comp.unix.voodoo
		news:rec.pets.birds
		...

	In the case of RootNode URLs, enumeration parameters can
	be given after the program.

		<RootNodes>
		|my-fave-sites.pl  Depth=1  URL=5000,url-filter
		</RootNodes>

    NewsArticle.sum TTL value
    -------------------------

	In version 1.4 the TTL value for NewsArticles has been
	increased to seven days.  If you wish to change the
	TTL for NewsGroup or NewsArticle objects you must edit
	the NewsGroup.sum or NewsArticle.sum scripts.

========================================================================

BROKER

    #Restart-Index-Server command
    -----------------------------

	This addition to the broker admin interface makes it possible
	to force a restart of the index server (e.g. glimpseserver,
	waisserver).  Under normal operations the index server
	is restarted after every 1000 queries.  

    Specifically setting GlimpseServer_Port
    ---------------------------------------

	In version 1.2 the glimpseserver port number was specified
	in the admin/broker.conf file.  On some systems (notably
	Solaris) this caused problems because the port would
	become "stuck" and restarting the broker would result in
	an "address already in use" error.

	In version 1.3 the glimpseserver port was chosen randomly
	every time it was restarted.  This can make it difficult
	to debug glimpse and make use of the glimpseserver outside
	of the broker.

	In version 1.4 it is again possible to specifically set
	the glimpseserver port.  If it is not defined in the
	broker.conf file, the port number is chosen at random.

========================================================================

MISCELLANEOUS

    Solaris and -lmalloc
    --------------------

	We have found that libmalloc.a has memory leaks and/or
	other bugs in Solaris versions 2.4 and earlier.  Therefore
	we now specifically avoid linking with -lmalloc on Solaris
	2.0 through 2.4.
