Default subscribed newsgroups as regular expression

Default subscribed newsgroups as regular expression

[Raymond Scholz]

Hi!

Is there a reason why `gnus-default-subscribed-newsgroups' is a list
and not a regular expression, which IMO would be more convenient in
most cases?

Example: if the variable is set in a site-wide default setting the
administor has to keep up with frequently changes of the available
local newsgroups. Quite annoying, I think. As a regular expression,
the setting "local\." would suffice (until the end of the world as we
know it).

Cheers,
  Ray
-- 
Raymond Scholz -*- rscholz@tzi.de -*- http://www.tzi.de/~rscholz/
FB 3 Informatik, Universität Bremen -*- PGP key available via WWW

Re: Default subscribed newsgroups as regular expression

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Raymond Scholz <rscholz@tzi.de> writes:

> Is there a reason why `gnus-default-subscribed-newsgroups' is a list
> and not a regular expression, which IMO would be more convenient in
> most cases?
> 
> Example: if the variable is set in a site-wide default setting the
> administor has to keep up with frequently changes of the available
> local newsgroups. Quite annoying, I think. As a regular expression,
> the setting "local\." would suffice (until the end of the world as we
> know it).

I guess that would make change, but it's problematic changing a string
variable into a regexp variable.  For instance, "no.general" (which is
the general Norwegian newsgroup) would, interpreted as a regexp, match
"alt.really.nasty.porno.general".  And some group names aren't valid
regexps, and so on.

An introducing a new variable for this seems kinda like overkill, no?

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen

Re: Default subscribed newsgroups as regular expression

[Raymond Scholz]

Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:

> I guess that would make change, but it's problematic changing a
> string variable into a regexp variable.  For instance, "no.general"
> (which is the general Norwegian newsgroup) would, interpreted as a
> regexp, match "alt.really.nasty.porno.general".

Uh, oh...  For backward compatibility we can't change the old variable
into a regexp, yes I see.

> And some group names aren't valid regexps, and so on.

Sure?  I thought group names are built like
[a-z][a-z0-9]+(\.[a-z0-9]+)+ or something like that (could not find
the appropriate RFC) which should always give a valid regexp.

> An introducing a new variable for this seems kinda like overkill, no?

Since I'm not going to code this (no lisp, no fun), you're probably
right.  Meanwhile I discovered `gnus-group-apropos', which can be
helpful.

Cheers,
  Ray
-- 
Raymond Scholz - rscholz@tzi.de - PGP - http://www.tzi.de/~rscholz/