Re: (provide 'nnmaildir)

[prj@po.cwru.edu (Paul Jarc)]

Simon Josefsson writes:
> Paul Jarc <prj@po.cwru.edu> writes:
> > So... what conditions are article numbers supposed to satisfy?
> 
> They must be a positive elisp integer, and article numbers should be
> persistant between gnus sessions.

So an article number for a particluar message must be constant for the
life of that message... after a message expires, can its article
number be reused?  My experiments indicate that nothing breaks
violently, but Gnus remembers the readness of the article even after
it expires, so a new article using the same number won't show up as
new. :(  It'd be nice if Gnus didn't mark numbers as read when they
have no article and are less than the number of a truly read article.

> > What do NNTP servers do when they run out (I'm assuming they don't
> > use bignums), and how does Gnus react?
> 
> Gnus just barf at article numbers > 2^28.

Ok... but do actual NNTP servers count into infinity?  They never
shift article numbers back to make room; do they ever wrap around to 0
(or 1)?  I would have thought that there must be a server out there
that's been in operation long enough to hit 2^32... or at least that
the authors of NNTP servers would take it into consideration.

> > (Right now, I'm using it to specify the path to the maildir, but I
> > think I'll create a backend variable for that purpose instead.)
> 
> Yes.  A good idea for the variable name would be `nnmaildir-directory'
> to match nnml etc.

Check, wilco.

> >  What about nnoo-push-server?
> 
> I don't think you should use it.

What I saw in other backends was that nnoo-change-server was used in
*-open-server, and nnoo-push-server was used everywhere else.  Should
I use nnoo-change-server in all cases?  What about backend functions
that don't take a defs argument?  How will they get the proper values
of the backend variables for the current server?  Or is *-open-server
always called first, if necessary, to make a server be current before
calling another backend function?

> > Can I get away with using article numbers for references there?
> 
> I don't think so, they should be taken from the References: header.

Yes, but what does Gnus do with them?  Construct threads, yes?  Is
this done is such a way that article numbers would work as well?  Or:
could Gnus be *made* to allow this? ;)  If I can keep article numbers
small, and if I can use them for References, then encoding NOV lines
in filenames might be feasible.

> > Why does gnus-nov-is-evil exist?
> 
> Some NNTP servers are broken wrt NOV.

So if my non-NNTP backend isn't broken, must I still obey it?

Since my last message, I've found more threads about maildir in the
archive (and haven't checked gnu.emacs.gnus yet), so I may yet
discover that this is a solved problem... particularly, I get the
impression there's some support in Pterodactyl Gnus.  I don't know yet
if it's just treating a maildir as an inbox, or if it's actually
*using* a maildir.


paul