Re: random questions mostly about Gnus configuration variables

[Sudish Joseph <sudish@mindspring.com>]

In article <xnj4tntdhhg.fsf@csb.bu.edu>,
Joe Wells <jbw@cs.bu.edu> writes:
> Hi, Gnusians,
> Here are some random questions mostly about Gnus configuration variables:

> 1.  The doc string ("C-h v") of gnus-fetch-old-headers is unclear.  The
>     doc string seems to imply that Gnus will scan the "references" headers
>     of the articles and then request the headers of the referred articles.
>     But in fact, setting this variable non-nil seems to make Gnus blindly
>     fetch all of the headers in the newsgroup.  What really happens?

It used to be that setting it to 'some worked like you describe.  Did
you try this?  I no longer use this over PPP.

> 2.  What is gnus-simplify-ignored-prefixes used by?  The doc string is
>     unclear.

The gnus-simplify-* stuff tries to canonicalise subject headers before
thy're sorted.  For instance "foo (was: bar)" and "foo" would be
treated as the same subject.

> 3.  The doc string of gnus-build-sparse-threads is unclear.  What does
>     this really do?  What are the "gaps" to which the doc string refers?

I believe they refer to the missing articles in a thread where you
might have the 1st and nth descendant.  Sort of like fetch-old-headers
where the intermediates can't be fecthed, or have already been read.

This is from memory, I never used this.  Pls. correct me if I'm wrong.

> 6.  What is the difference between nil and 'some for
>     gnus-read-active-file?

Good question.  I don't see why 'some shouldn't be equivalent to nil
functionally.  They're not equivalent right now from a look at the
code--I don't have the enthusiasm to edebug through active file
lookups over a PPP link. :-)

> 7.  Why did I see the message "Loading hexl" while Gnus was fetching
>     headers for a group?  What does Gnus use "hexl" for?

QP decoding, apparently.

> 9.  What are the interactions between the to-address, to-group, and
>     to-list parameters of a group?  What happens if you set more than one
>     of them?  What is the difference between to-address and to-list?

I've said way too much on this topic to start on this. :-)  If you
dig around the archives you should find a longish thread on this
topic around Fall last year.

-- 
Sudish