Re: Gnus still doesn't count messages properly

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org>]

Jérôme Marant <jerome.marant@free.fr> writes:

> It seems that the number of messages within groups
> is not calculated properly: it usually gives a bigger
> number of incoming emails than there are really (sometimes,
> it tells me about new messages, although there aren't).

The Gnus/backend protocol doesn't allow for the backend to really say
how many articles are in the group.  And even if it did, it wouldn't
be useful information -- if you have read messages 5-10 in a group,
and the backend says that there are 4 messages in the group, the
highest being number 13, the lowest 3 -- how many unread messages
should Gnus claim that there are in the group?

So the backend would have to return the actual range of articles in
the group during the activation process, which (for most backends) is
costly, and for some is impossible.

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