Re: Difference between nnmail- and gnus- variables?

[Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net>]

Pankaj Jangid <pankaj@codeisgreat.org> writes:

> A few days back I was trying to setup ‘nnmail-list-identifiers’. It did
> not work for me. May be because some additional settings must be
> required. I asked a question here... why my setup is not
> working. In-replies, I got to understand that my settings are
> ok. Because the same settings are working elsewhere.
>
> In the replies, I came across a similar variable
> ‘gnus-list-identifiers’. Setting this variable worked. Without any
> hassle.
>
> Similar thing happened with me when I was setting mail splitting.
>
> I want to understand the nomenclature. What is the difference between
> ‘nnml-’ and similar ‘gnus-’ variables?

In OO terms, nnmail.el can be thought of as an abstract parent class for
all backends belonging to the "store messages as files on disk" type of
server. It provides settings and functions that are used in common by
nnml, nnmbox, nnmaildir, etc.

In this particular case, though, `nnmail-list-identifiers' is only used
within `nnmail-remove-list-identifiers', which isn't actually called by
Gnus anywhere, it's just provided as a function that you could
potentially use as part of the `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
See the "Washing Mail" section of the manual.

The `gnus-' version, by contrast, gets called automatically as part of
message display.

I know it's not intuitive...