Update of RIPE database software

[Marten Terpstra <]

Folks,

I have made an update of the RIPE database (beta) software available
for anonymous ftp on ncc.ripe.net as dbase-beta/dbase-beta.tar.Z.
Again, this is NOT on ftp.ripe.net and the directory dbase-beta is not
readable. The file is there and retrievable.

This update includes *many* bug fixes, some reasonably serious, others
cosmetic or to increase user-friendliness. I would urge everyone who
is using the software to consider upgrading.

A next release will be more of a alpha type release (and will thus be
called differently ;-) because this will include classless indexing
and lookups. There are some major changes made for that. The whole
indexing system has been changed, and for that purpose the database
no longer consists of one large file, but will be split into one file
per object type, if so requested. This is all configurable. I hope to
have a alpha version up for ftp (that will include some documentation
on the changes) before I am off to the IETF and holidays at the end of
next week. No promises though. This new software will as far as I can
guess now not yet include guarded attribute and object procedures,
since they have to change drastically as well and I am currently
working on that.....

Before I send out the software, I will provide those who want to have
a look at the classless capabilities, a whois client which will
understand the special flags needed to request more and less specific
network numbers. That should be at around the end of this week. 

This mail is longer than I expected, so

Cheers,

-Marten