Many questions about brewing SOUP?

Many questions about brewing SOUP?

[Eze Ogwuma]

Hi,

I've just started to test SOUP and I have several questions about its
operation.

1) 

How long will nnsoup articles remain by default?

2) 

To see my SOUP groups I made nnsoup one of the secondary select
methods and then restarted Gnus. I then used "Browse foreign server"
with type "nnsoup". Then subscribed to all my nnsoup groups which
were shown as being "killed". 

Is this the right way to have gone about things or should I have
restarted Gnus and then used "A z" to see the zombie groups and "u" to
subscribe?

3)

I am using SOUP to copy my mail articles from an nndoc file to my home
machine. Once at home I re-spool the articles to my "nnml" files. Is
this the best way to use SOUP for reading mail?

4)

I noticed the command "gnus-batch-brew-soup" and used
describe-function to find out what it was for:

    emacs> gnus-batch-brew-soup: an interactive compiled Lisp function
    emacs> in `gnus-soup'.  (gnus-batch-brew-soup)

    emacs> Brew a SOUP packet from groups mention on the command line.
    emacs> Will use the remaining command line arguments as regular
    emacs> expressions for matching on group names.

    emacs> For instance, if you want to brew on all the nnml groups,
    emacs> as well as groups with "emacs" in the name, you could say
    emacs> something like:

    emacs> $ emacs -batch -f gnus-batch-brew-soup ^nnml ".*emacs.*"


This is exactly what I needed as collecting articles from the nntp
server can be slow. 

How come this function is not documented in the info files?

5)

How do I use this function to collect all articles in all the groups
from all the servers to which I am subscribed?

6)

Once I get my SOUP packet home, can I re-spool my news to the nntp
server or is it best just to use nnsoup to read news?


Thanks.

-- 
Eze Ogwuma

Re: Many questions about brewing SOUP?

[Samuel Tardieu]

>>>>> "Eze" == Eze Ogwuma <zcaceog@ucl.ac.uk> writes:

Eze> How come this function is not documented in the info files?

If I remember well, this function has been here for a long time but
its body contains... nothing :)

  Sam
-- 
Samuel Tardieu -- sam@inf.enst.fr

Re: Many questions about brewing SOUP?

[François Pinard]

Eze Ogwuma <zcaceog@ucl.ac.uk> writes:

| I've just started to test SOUP and I have several questions about its
| operation.

| 1) How long will nnsoup articles remain by default?

I think your generic default applies to nnsoup as for other backends
(unless overridden, of course).  Whenever *all* articles in a single
nnsoup sub-packet (one is created each time you use `O s' in Summary
buffer or `G s b' in Group buffer) are expirable, then the sub-packet
will be deleted whole, at once, at the next expiration opportunity.

| 2) To see my SOUP groups [...]

It is simple.  `g' from the Group buffer will unpack all your Soup packets,
and incorporate all sub-packets in the group each belong.  You only need
`F' so Gnus will display newly arrived groups (and maybe later using `C-c
C-s' to sort them at their proper place in your group list, if this is what
you like).  The command `R', which restarts Gnus all over without leaving
it, has been useful to me in the beginnings, when I was feeling lost.
More it goes, less I need it! :-)

| 3) Once at home I re-spool the articles to my "nnml" files.  Is this
| the best way to use SOUP for reading mail?

This is what I also do, but I presume "best" is just a matter of personal
taste.  If Gnus was not bitching each time I use `B m' on an nnsoup group,
I would probably not respool nnsoup articles.  My feeling is that `B m'
should copy the article, and then, mark it expirable if it cannot do
better (because nnsoup sub-packets only disappear whole).  The idea here
is to have Gnus to be the most usable possible.  When this is not granted,
respooling might be just more interesting, yet it is spoiled overhead.
This could be avoided if Gnus was approximating, the best it can, commands
it cannot achieve exactly according to the initial design.  Right now,
by respooling, I work for Gnus, while I would prefer Gnus works for me! :-)

-- 
François Pinard         ``Vivement GNU!''        pinard@iro.umontreal.ca
Support Programming Freedom, join our League!  Ask lpf@lpf.org for info!

Re: Many questions about brewing SOUP?

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Eze Ogwuma <zcaceog@ucl.ac.uk> writes:

> Once I get my SOUP packet home, can I re-spool my news to the nntp
> server or is it best just to use nnsoup to read news?

Yes -- gnus-soup creates RNEWS batch files by defaults, so you can
just feed them to rnews, if you like.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  larsi@ifi.uio.no * Lars Ingebrigtsen

Re: Many questions about brewing SOUP?

[Eze Ogwuma]

Thanks for your help with this.

Eze.

Re: Many questions about brewing SOUP?

[Eze Ogwuma]

On 14 Feb 1997, Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen wrote:

> Eze Ogwuma <zcaceog@ucl.ac.uk> writes:
> 
> > Once I get my SOUP packet home, can I re-spool my news to the nntp
> > server or is it best just to use nnsoup to read news?
> 
> Yes -- gnus-soup creates RNEWS batch files by defaults, so you can
> just feed them to rnews, if you like.
> 

Oh right, thanks.

I wondered what the rnews command was for.

I think that perhaps the documentation is a little lacking in places. 

Eze.

Re: Many questions about brewing SOUP?

[Eze Ogwuma]

Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@ifi.uio.no> writes:

> 
> Eze Ogwuma <zcaceog@ucl.ac.uk> writes:
> 
> > Once I get my SOUP packet home, can I re-spool my news to the nntp
> > server or is it best just to use nnsoup to read news?
> 
> Yes -- gnus-soup creates RNEWS batch files by defaults, so you can
> just feed them to rnews, if you like.
> 

I guess this means that I can also feed my mail files to nntp.


Eze.