Re: can back end keep track of *all* group info?

[prj@po.cwru.edu (Paul Jarc)]

Regarding the subject: backends can store articles and marks, but not
group parameters.  At least, not as well.

Paul Grayson <pgrayson+ding@ks.uiuc.edu> wrote:
> I'm writing a simple server that will allow me to access a huge
> maildir (10,000+ messages).

You might have a look at nnmaildir.  It's in CVS now and is documented
(for now) at <URL:http://multivac.cwru.edu./nnmaildir/>.

> I split the messages virtually - my server applies splitting rules
> *while* you browse through your mail.

nnmaildir doesn't mind if you do that.

> My server keeps track of marks,

nnmaildir also does that.  Without knowing how your server does it,
it's tough to say how hard it would be to hook them together.

> I don't want my server to count the total number of messages in a
> group - that will take too long -

nnmaildir keeps a list of articles (not their contents, though) in
memory for each group.  I suppose that might be a problem for you.

> and I want to avoid the nnimap problem of always having the
> unread/flagged count out of sync with the server.

nnmaildir renumbers its articles when you close and reopen the server,
so those counts aren't so far off.  The price of this is that
nnmaildir doesn't work with the Gnus Agent or cache.

> I love everything Gnus does, and really want to use it as a front end
> to this server - is there any way to write it a back end?

There's some material in the manual about the backend interface.
That's where I started when writing nnmaildir.

> I've experimented a little, and it seems that Gnus generally
> requests much more information than it uses, but checks too rarely
> (with, for example, nnchoke-request-update-info) to keep the
> information up-to-date.

Yes, it's noticeably skewed toward NNTP.


paul