Should articles be removed from the cache when they are read?

Should articles be removed from the cache when they are read?

[Jonas Kvarnström]

When I read a cached article, should it be deleted from the cache
automatically?

According to the Gnus manual, when I have an article that I want to
"keep and treasure forever", I should make it persistent, so that it
"just won't be deleted".

Also, according to the Gnus FAQ:

> If you tap * on an article, you have made it persistent. Nothing you
> ever do, except using the M-* command, will remove it from the cache
> where it's stored.

> If you mark an article with the E mark, (ie., made it expirable), it
> will be deleted by the mail backend when it reaches a certain
> age. The persistent copy of the message will not be touched.

Since I had read that, I was a bit confused when I marked about a
hundred articles in an old mailing list archive as persistent and
exited the group, and Gnus told me it was removing the cached
articles.  I verified that this really happened - the entire cache
subdirectory for that group had disappeared.

When I read the manual more carefully, I could see that articles are
by default removed from the cache when they were read
(gnus-cache-remove-articles includes 'read).  This seems to contradict
the FAQ and the documentation for persistent articles.

Re: Should articles be removed from the cache when they are read?

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

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jonkv@ida.liu.se (Jonas Kvarnström) writes:

> Since I had read that, I was a bit confused when I marked about a
> hundred articles in an old mailing list archive as persistent and
> exited the group, and Gnus told me it was removing the cached
> articles.  I verified that this really happened - the entire cache
> subdirectory for that group had disappeared.

This might mean that you've changed `gnus-use-cache' from the default
`passive' to t (or something).  The cache (when it is not passive) is
very, uh, active.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen

Re: Should articles be removed from the cache when they are read?

[Jonas Kvarnström]

Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:

> > Since I had read that, I was a bit confused when I marked about a
> > hundred articles in an old mailing list archive as persistent and
> > exited the group, and Gnus told me it was removing the cached
> > articles.  I verified that this really happened - the entire cache
> > subdirectory for that group had disappeared.
> 
> This might mean that you've changed `gnus-use-cache' from the default
> `passive' to t (or something).  The cache (when it is not passive) is
> very, uh, active.

Oops.  Yes, you're right, I had set it to t, since I wanted ticked and
dormant articles to be cached (if I read the manual correctly, only
articles explicitly marked with '*' are cached when the cache is
passive).  I'll reread the manual a couple of times...  I still think
the manual is a little bit misleading when it says that a persistent
article "just won't be deleted", though.