[rfk-dev] definition of MESSAGES

[Peter A. Peterson II]

Quoting Paul J Collins:
> 
> Rather than worry about keeping track of the number of NKIs listed in
> messages.h, it might be simpler to define MESSAGES thus:
> 
> #define MESSAGES (sizeof messages / sizeof (char*))

This is true. 

However, we are kicking around different ideas of how the POSIX client
will read in it's nki. My personal preference goes like this (and
incidentally, is another reason that rfk needs a .conf file):

robotfindskitten, by default, reads it's nki at run-time from a standard
messages text file. This would work best for small messages files (with
varying definitions of small)

By option, robotfindskitten will read in "fortune file format" files at
runtime for it's nki. fortune (as you may or may not know) can source
multiple fortune files per run in order to give you access to multiple
sorted fortunes, or fortune files from multiple individuals (like at
zork.net). This way, an admin could set up rfk, and a
/usr/share/rfk/messages/ directory for multiple users to create their
rfk messages, which would be sourced at runtime. This allows for
multiple users to add to rfk on a system.

Having both options keeps the nki list in plain text for those who don't
want to fool with strfile, while the fortune system is definitely more
robust and speedier, as well as the whole multiuser angle.

ALso, the rfk-MUA could be disabled in the aforementioned .conf file.

Peter