Re: Archiving large NNML groups quickly.

[Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com>]

Simon Josefsson <jas@extundo.com> writes:

> On Tue, 30 Oct 2001, Daniel Pittman wrote:
>
>> Now that the NNML marks, et al, are set up so that NNML groups are
>> independent, is it possible for me to quickly move my current
>> linux-kernel archive to a backup by doing...
>> 
>> ] cd ~/Mail && mv linux.kernel linux.kernel.1
>> 
>> ...when Gnus is not running? I think this should just work and I will
>> get a new group linux.kernel.1 and all, but I wanted to check...
>
> You need to unsubscribe to the old group, and subscribe to the new one
> within Gnus, but other than that I think it would work.  Hm, I think nnml
> notices new groups automagically if they are part of the active file,
> maybe you can use "echo linux.kernel.1 0 1 0 y >> active" to do everything
> from the cmd line.  IMHO the active file should be eliminated, and a
> ".active" file in each nnml group should be used instead.

I've experimented with this a little and this looks like at least one
good way to do it from command line ( a helper tool is included).

1)
   cp -R ~/Mail/target ~/Mail/target.1
2) 
   Get the highest and lowest message numbers in "target.1 and add this entry
   to ~/Mail/active: "target.1 high_num low_num y
   (A homeboy scritp included to extract that information)

3) 
   Two techniques available here  
   a. In a running gnus go to server buffer. Press <RET> on
   nnml (or whatever) server.  Subscribe to target.1
4)
   Back in group buffer press `g' before entering the new group
NOTE:
This method seems to maintain any marks that were in "target".

Helper script:
For usage type "add_active help" but in general:
add_active -d <no args> - display most of the variables inside the script
add_active -s GROUP - Shows what will be appended.
add_active -w GROUP - Write the data to ~/Mial/active
(Note: -w flag causes a backup copy of ~/Mail/active to be
 written to ~/Mail/active_MNTHDAYHOURMINSEC before writing)

(NOTE: Beware of lightly tested script)

cat add_active

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
#!/bin/sh
# Keywords: add_active - insert an entry into Gnus ~/Mail/active file
# key Date: Oct 30 2001 2
# &&

## BEGIN DOCUMENTATION[S] ======================================
usage () {
cat >&2 <<EOM
Purpose:  Append entry to Gnus ~/Mail/active file containing
          highest and lowest messagge number like: "GROUP HI LO y"

Usage:  \`$(basename $0) -[dsw] GROUP <-s -w> require an argument
         (Note: do not include path with GROUP)
       -d - <no args allowed> display most of the variables inside
            this script.
       -s - <requires a GROUP arg> Show what the results would be
       -w - <requires a GROUP arg> Writes to active file. 
            (Note: -w flag cause a copy of ~/Mail/active to be saved
             to ~/Mail/active_$(date +"%m%d%H%M%S") before writing.
EOM
} ## end

## BEGIN SAFEGAURDS ============================================
if [ -z "$1" -o "$1" = help ];then
    usage
    exit
fi
## BEGIN VARIABLE[s] ============================================
AWK=/bin/awk
GROUP=$2
ACTIVE=~/Mail/active
BASE=/home/reader/Mail

ACT_ENTRY=$(ls $BASE/$GROUP |sort -n| $AWK '
	NR<2{ORS=" ";last=$0}END {$FNR;print;print last " y"}')

## BEGIN GETOPTS SECTION =========================================
while getopts "ds:w:" opt; do
       case "$opt" in
## Display variables
    d) 
       $AWK '/[[:alnum:]]+=/' $0
        ;;
## show results
    s) echo -e "$GROUP $ACT_ENTRY"
       echo "Type \`$(basename $0) -w GROUP' to write it'"
       ;;
## Write results
    w) 
       cp $ACTIVE "$ACTIVE"_$(date +"%m%d%H%M%S") &&      
       echo "$GROUP $ACT_ENTRY" >> $ACTIVE 
       echo -e ""$GROUP $ACT_ENTRY" written to $ACTIVE"
       ;;
  esac
done

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^