nnir oddity in group names

[Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com>]

I noticed this oddity in using nnir with glimpse.

Summary:
Nnir normally wants group names entered in dot format even if they are
in slash format under ~/Mail.  

For nnir `~/Mail/topic/awk' becomes topic.awk  
Described in the details below, I find if a group name is symlinked
under ~/Mail like: ~/Mail/comp@/unix/questions, then nnir
fails unless the name is submitted in unix slash style.. like:
comp/unix/questions

Details:

I have nnmail set to use unix style file names.  So I have a number of
groups that are in directories like ~/Mail/t/awk ~/Mail/t/procmail The
`t' stood for `topic' originally.  these are groups where I send
edited messages that I want to keep, containing interesting info about
the topics indicated.

Using nnir to search these is as easy as `C-u G G' <enter query>
and then the <enter group name>.  But in the format nnir understands.  That
is,  t.awk or t.procmail.

Recently I've added a number of nnml groups that are really News
groups.  These groups are formed by rsyncing the directories under
~/News/agent/nntp/<server> to a holding directory (/n2m), where the
Newsgoups grow as more rsyncs are done.  This directory looks like:

ls -F  /n2m
comp/ gnu/ mailing/ 
gnu contains the obvious ones gnu/emacs/gnus  gnu/emacs/help
Under comp is comp/unix/questions  comp/unix/shells  etc
The mailing directory contains the FreeBSD lists from a mail2news gateway.

So `ls -F' /n2m/mailing/freebsd
current/  doc/  hackers/  hardware/  ports/  questions/

These groups are added to nnml by symlinking like this:
~/Mail/comp@ -->/n2m/comp/  or ~/Mail/gnu@ -->/n2m/emacs

Then opening gnus server buffer (`^') hitting enter on the (only) nnml
server, then subscribing to the new groups available behind the
symlinks.

It is necessary to run nnml-generate-nov-databases occasionally to
get  the new articles being added by rsync into the nov files.

When I use nnir to search these groups like:  C-u G G <enter
query><RET> <enter group><RET>.

Nnir fails if I enter the group name as in the first (t.awk) example:
   comp.unix.questions

And will only work if I use the actual unix style name:
   comp/unix/questions

The only difference between the symlinked groups and ~/Mail/t/awk is
the symlink, so I'm assuming that's what is causing this minor glitch.  

Near as I can tell from the .glimpse directory
.glimpse_filenames.   Glimpse sees the symlinked files in the same way
it sees the ~/Mail/t/awk files:

>From .glimpse_filenames:
/home/reader/Mail/t/awk/133
/home/reader/Mail/t/awk/132

[...]

/home/reader/Mail/gnu/emacs/help/46696
/home/reader/Mail/gnu/emacs/help/46694