Re: Protect against servers stepping on each other's toes

[Matt Armstrong <matt@lickey.com>]

Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) writes:

> The trouble is with people who do this:
> 
> (add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods '(nnml ""))
> (add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods '(nnfolder ""))

And I just spent hours discovering that this happens by default if you
have:

    (setq gnus-select-method '(nnml ""))

And then "B c" a message into an nnfolder:FOO directory.  They both do
stuff in ~/Mail.  I.e. FOO gets added to ~/Mail/active.

This would ordinarily not be a problem, but it seems that something
goes through ~/Mail/active and creates nnml groups for everything in
it.  So I end up with both a "FOO" and a "nnfolder:FOO" in my
.newsrc.eld.  Insanity follows.

I've not yet verified if this happens only because I have '(nnml "")
as my primary select method.

This is particularly bad because Gnus magically creates the
"nnfolder:" method for me, using what I assume are the defaults.



> Maybe some crooked mind does something like this:
> 
> (add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods 
>              '(nnfolder "a"
>                 (nnfolder-directory "/tmp/a")
>                 (nnfolder-active-file "/tmp/active")))
> (add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods 
>              '(nnfolder "b"
>                 (nnfolder-directory "/tmp/b")
>                 (nnfolder-active-file "/tmp/active")))
> 
> Note how they use different directories but the same active file.
> 
> But you're right, it seems that it is sufficient to set a variable
> value, such as gnus-occupied-directories or something like this.

Yes, gnus-occupied-directories would catch unintended problems like I
describe above.  Were it implemented now, I'd be asleep this very
moment.  :-)


-- 
matt