Question about nnfolder-directory and nnml-directory

[Nevin Kapur <nevin@jhu.edu>]

Hi,

I'm trying to figure out the role of nnfolder-directory and
nnml-directory. I have, in my .gnus

(setq nnfolder-directory "~/mail"
      nnml-directory "~/Mail")

When I start Gnus, and I try C-h v nnfolder-directory, I get the
answer "~/Mail/archive". Once I enter a group and try the same query,
indeed I do get back "~/mail" as intended. If I quit Gnus and make the
query, I get nil back. Everything works fine. I am interested in
understanding how one can check for the user's value of
nnfolder-directory. Why don't I get "~/mail" back each time I query
for nnfolder-directory?

The same goes for nnml-directory. It starts out as
"~/News/nntp+News.CIS.DFN.DE" and gets magically set to "~/Mail".

I am Lisp novice. I read a little bit of the Lisp reference that comes
with XEmacs. From what I figured out, any defvar should only alter the
value of nnfolder-directory if it is not bound already.

Thanks in advance.
-- 
Nevin