Re: .newsrc-dribble file is huge

Re: .newsrc-dribble file is huge

[Simon Josefsson]

The following message is a courtesy copy of an article
that has been posted to gnu.emacs.gnus as well.

(Crossposted to the ding list from gnu.emacs.gnus..)

Derrell.Lipman@UnwiredUniverse.com writes:

> (Is there a reason that .newsrc doesn't get saved automatically?  It seems to
> be a "behind-the-scenes" file.  Should the user really need to have to concern
> himself with saving it?)

I have been thinking about this too.  Presumably the current design is
due to historic emacs behaviour -- don't save a file unless the user
requested it.  But today Gnus read and writes many files and never
query the user about this.  The only reason I can think of is that if
the user does something stupid, she can kill emacs without saving the
file and things are back to normal.  But undo should handle that
(otherwise it is a bug), and in any case the file is being backuped
now (emacs backup stuff was disabled for the file historically).

I think .newsrc.eld should be saved automatically.  Opinions?

Hm.  But you said .newsrc.  Since that file is used by multiple
programs, it is probably safer to only write to it when Gnus quits, or
when the user presses `s'.  Assuming this is what other news readers
does.