How many articles to read...?

How many articles to read...?

[Dmitry Yaitskov]

Hi,

In one of my main groups, the number of articles went beyond 200. Ok,
so I deleted/moved some messages, now there are only 104 (and the
.overview in that group's dir has also only 104 lines). And, I have
restared gnus a couple of times since then. Still, each time I try to
enter that group, gnus asks me "How many articles to...(default
204):". Anybody knows why?

Thanks.

-- 
Cheers,
-Dima.

Re: How many articles to read...?

[Karl Kleinpaste]

Dmitry Yaitskov <dimas@home.com> writes:
> In one of my main groups, the number of articles went beyond 200. Ok,
> so I deleted/moved some messages, now there are only 104...
> Still, each time I try to
> enter that group, gnus asks me "How many articles to...(default
> 204):". Anybody knows why?

The number offered is simply the difference between the highest- and
lowest-numbered articles known.  You evidently removed articles from
the middle of the range, which did not change the range limits.

Re: How many articles to read...?

[Dmitry Yaitskov]

Karl Kleinpaste <karl@justresearch.com> wrote:

> Dmitry Yaitskov <dimas@home.com> writes:
> > In one of my main groups, the number of articles went beyond 200. Ok,
> > so I deleted/moved some messages, now there are only 104...
> > Still, each time I try to
> > enter that group, gnus asks me "How many articles to...(default
> > 204):". Anybody knows why?
> 
> The number offered is simply the difference between the highest- and
> lowest-numbered articles known.  You evidently removed articles from
> the middle of the range, which did not change the range limits.

I see. Is it a bug or a feature? I mean, I don't really care about the
articles' numbers and have no way to control them, why doesn't gnus
show e.g. the number of entires (lines?) in the .overview file
instead? Can this behavior somehow be changed without seeting the
limit to INT_MAX? Thanks.

-- 
Cheers,
-Dima.

Re: How many articles to read...?

[Karl Kleinpaste]

Dmitry Yaitskov <dimas@home.com> writes:
> Is it a bug or a feature? 

Depends on how you look at it.  For precision, it's a bug.  For
simplicity, it's a feature.

> I mean, I don't really care about the articles' numbers and have no
> way to control them, why doesn't gnus show e.g. the number of
> entires (lines?) in the .overview file instead? 

Because that can be very, very expensive.

Consider Gnus as a newsreader.  (Mail handling is just Gnus looking at
something news-like while stoned on really bad crack.)  You enter a
group, and Gnus picks up the active file's concept of lowest- and
highest-numbered article.  What's the simplest conception that can be
provided as to how many articles are probably there?

Simply subtract, of course.  The delta is "close," in the usual (news)
case, where articles arrive sequentially, and (usually) are deleted
off the low end in large batches during expiry runs, leaving no
article numbering holes.

Now come to mail, where we have massive amounts of peculiar control
that isn't typical of a news system.  We move articles around, copy
them, delete them, all of these things knocking around the limits in
the mail active file.  What's Gnus to do?  Start reading the entirety
of every .overview it runs into?  That's an awful lot of wasted I/O,
and a lot of wasted time spent counting lines, considering how few
entries from the typical .overview are really relevant during any
given arrival in either a news or mail group.  I have nnml groups with
4000 articles in them -- I do not want multi-megabyte .overviews being
read, every time I enter the group.

So you learn to live with mail groups' counts being wrong, or...

> Can this behavior somehow be changed without seeting the limit to
> INT_MAX?

- Enter the group now mistakenly perceived as having too many articles.
- Process-mark the whole set.
- `B m' to move them all to the same group.

The resulting article range will be contiguous and relatively narrow.

Re: How many articles to read...?

[Dmitry Yaitskov]

Karl Kleinpaste <karl@justresearch.com> wrote:

> Dmitry Yaitskov <dimas@home.com> writes:
> > Is it a bug or a feature? 
> 
> Depends on how you look at it.  For precision, it's a bug.  For
> simplicity, it's a feature.

Yes, I see your point.

> > I mean, I don't really care about the articles' numbers and have no
> > way to control them, why doesn't gnus show e.g. the number of
> > entires (lines?) in the .overview file instead? 
> 
> Because that can be very, very expensive.
> 
> Consider Gnus as a newsreader.  (Mail handling is just Gnus looking at
> something news-like while stoned on really bad crack.)

Is it really so? Agreeing with your other points, I don't think you're
exactly right saying that gnus is primarily a newsreader. Ok, I know
that that's what it's called. Still, of all the people using gnus, how
many do you think use it for news only, using something else for mail?
Probably a lot, but I think another "a lot" uses it for both... if for
no other reason than to not having to learn all the keys, shortcuts
and quirks of another program. And as a matter of fact it *is* a very
nice mail reader.

Anyway, you're right in saying that it is natural for gnus to simply
subtract the article numbers to get at that figure it asks about. 

<snip>

> So you learn to live with mail groups' counts being wrong, or...
> 
> > Can this behavior somehow be changed without seeting the limit to
> > INT_MAX?
> 
> - Enter the group now mistakenly perceived as having too many articles.
> - Process-mark the whole set.
> - `B m' to move them all to the same group.
> 
> The resulting article range will be contiguous and relatively narrow.

Many thanks for the tip.

-- 
Cheers,
-Dima.

Re: How many articles to read...?

[Kai.Grossjohann]

Dmitry Yaitskov <dimas@home.com> writes:

  > Is it really so? Agreeing with your other points, I don't think you're
  > exactly right saying that gnus is primarily a newsreader. Ok, I know
  > that that's what it's called. Still, of all the people using gnus, how
  > many do you think use it for news only, using something else for mail?
  > Probably a lot, but I think another "a lot" uses it for both... if for
  > no other reason than to not having to learn all the keys, shortcuts
  > and quirks of another program. And as a matter of fact it *is* a very
  > nice mail reader.

Right.  The very fact that it pretends that mail is the same as news
makes it so nice.

kai
-- 
I like _\bb_\bo_\bt_\bh kinds of music.

Re: How many articles to read...?

[Justin Sheehy]

Dmitry Yaitskov <dimas@home.com> writes:

> I see. Is it a bug or a feature?

It's documented, so it's a feature.  That doesn't stop one from
turning it off, though...

> Can this behavior somehow be changed without seeting the limit to
> INT_MAX?

`gnus-large-newsgroup' is a variable declared in Lisp.

Value: nil

Documentation:
*The number of articles which indicates a large newsgroup.

-- 
Justin Sheehy

In a cloud bones of steel.
  

Re: How many articles to read...?

[Hallvard B Furuseth]

Dmitry Yaitskov <dimas@home.com> writes:

>> The number offered is simply the difference between the highest- and
>> lowest-numbered articles known.  You evidently removed articles from
>> the middle of the range, which did not change the range limits.
> 
> I see. Is it a bug or a feature?

It's a bug in the prompt ("how many articles") and a few doc strings.
If you can come up with a better prompt which is still small enough,
please post it.

-- 
Hallvard