Re: [rmail-mbox-branch]: mail-utils

[Alexander Pohoyda <alexander.pohoyda@gmx.net>]

Miles Bader <miles@gnu.org> writes:

> On Sat, Oct 09, 2004 at 01:34:49AM +0200, Alexander Pohoyda wrote:
> > > The mm- stuff seems not to be intended to be gnus-specific, but rather
> > > general-purpose code for handling mime that happens to be developed as part
> > > of gnus.
> > 
> > Yes, I understand the intention.
> > 
> > 
> > > There are probably a few dependencies on gnus that have crept in, but I
> > > presume these could be excised.
> > 
> > Some mm-*.el files use quite often functions or constants with gnus-
> > prefix.
> 
> Can you be more specific?  I did a grep, and the dependencies seem pretty
> much restricted to a few files (e.g., mm-view.el);

Yes, there are only very few cases:

mm-partial.el:(require 'gnus-sum)
mm-partial.el:             (set-buffer gnus-summary-buffer)
mm-partial.el:    (gnus-request-article-this-buffer (aref header 0)
mm-partial.el:                     (gnus-summary-article-number))))
mm-partial.el:      (setq gnus-article-mime-handles
mm-partial.el:      (append (if (listp (car gnus-article-mime-handles))
mm-partial.el:                  gnus-article-mime-handles
mm-partial.el:                (list gnus-article-mime-handles))
mm-partial.el:      (run-hooks 'gnus-article-decode-hook)
mm-partial.el:      (gnus-article-prepare-display)

mm-uu.el:  :group 'gnus-article-mime)

mm-view.el:  (autoload 'gnus-article-prepare-display "gnus-art")
mm-view.el:       (run-hooks 'gnus-article-decode-hook)


My primary concern, however, is that mm- stuff is rather a MIME
parser (viewer), while rfc*.el files implement basic functions.
Wouldn't it be good to have these two things clearly separated?

If we don't separate mm- and basic MIME functions, and if we don't
move them out of gnus directory, people will continue to re-implement
basic functions.

Do you know of any good reason to have the mm-* stuff used in rfc*
files?

Anyway, we need MIME support in Rmail.  Would it be correct to make
Rmail depend on file from Gnus directory?  My idea is to move MIME
stuff into lisp/mail(/mime?) directory.  Both Gnus and Rmail could use
these basic functions.  All I propose to move, are few files:
    lisp/gnus/rfc2045.el
    lisp/gnus/rfc2047.el
    lisp/gnus/rfc2231.el
leaving mm-* files intact.  What exactly do you disagree with?

> > I would like to have a clean MIME library first.
> 
> Sure, and the mm- stuff seems like the right to start from.

By "MIME library" I mean functions like
    rfc2045-qp-decode-string,
    rfc2231-decode-string,
    rfc2047-decode-region
but not
    mm-inline-partial,
    mm-inline-image-xemacs,
    mm-setup-w3, 
    mm-inline-message

> would completely silly to reimplement all of it when mm- is pretty
> close to what you want anyway.

People may have their own ideas how to use MIME, let's not force them
to use mm- as a bonus.


-- 
Alexander Pohoyda <alexander.pohoyda@gmx.net>
PGP Key fingerprint: 7F C9 CC 5A 75 CD 89 72  15 54 5F 62 20 23 C6 44