Re: Some numbering problem (nnml?)

[Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com>]

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

> On 01 Dec 2000, Fabrice Gamberini wrote:
> 
> > Is there a command to make Gnus recount the effective number of
> > messages in a group ??
> 
> The number that Gnus initially shows is based on the difference
> between the highest and the lowest article number.  If there are many
> `holes' in the article number sequence, the estimate can be way off.
> 
> You could `C-u RET' to enter the group, showing all articles.  Then
> you mark them all with `M P a', then `B m' them into the same group.
> This will close the holes.

In my short time using gnus (since about Quassia-12 or so) I've seen
this topic come up probably over 1000 times.   I've wondered a time or
two why we do not have a better way to give accurate numbers for
articles in a group. 

Kai's remedy works for mail groups and has been posted many times too.
Not detracting from the remedy, which was clearly given for mail
groups, But it doesn't work for nntp/agentized groups.

The current High-Low method is known to be ridiculously inaccurate in
Mail and Agentized groups, because of expiry, messages movement (B m)
etc. (esp. if `gnus-agent-expire' is run occassionally).

It seems that if gnus is capable of assembling a summary buffer
containing all messages, it would be able to count them too. 

The high-low mechanism seems ok for the days when gnus was an on-line
only reader.  But has never been good for mail, and now many of us
have agentized articles in those nntp groups too.

How hard can it really be for gnus to count files on disk for mail
groups?  And maybe compile some combination of data from nntp server
and actual count for nntp groups.

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