Re: Bug in deleting attachments

[Stephen Berman <Stephen.Berman@gmx.net>]

On Fri, 12 Mar 2004 20:19:32 +0900 Katsumi Yamaoka <yamaoka@jpl.org> wrote:
>
> You can save either the whole forwarded message or only the
> attachment-1 into a local file by typing the `o' key at the
> button-2 or button-4 respectively.  That is convenient.  The
> reason you can do it is because Gnus has prepared raw contents
> on the hidden buffers for all the buttons.  It means both the
> buffer for the button-2 and the buffer for the button-4 contain
> the same attachment-1.
>
> Even if you can delete the attachment-1 by typing the `d' key at
> the button-4, the same attachment-1 is still in the hidden
> buffer for the button-2.  And there is no way to delete it.
> This is the reason why deleting parts is impossible.

I see now, thanks.  I wonder if it would be worthwhile to implement a
function to split a message up into its constituent MIME parts without
overlap in the hidden buffers, at the cost, of course, of permanently
destroying the MIME structure, making restoration impossible.  (Maybe
this would be no different than just editing the message by hand, but
more convenient for things like deleting an attachment.)

> Another difficulty is in restoring the MIME structure.  Although
> I wrote that the forwarded message contains two attachments, the
> attachment-2 may not belong to the forwarded message.  Who knows
> if it doesn't belong to the main message?  That is, there is no
> information for restoring them correctly, so we can't resave the
> modified message into a file.  It may not need to be completely
> correct, though.

Maybe this is the trade-off users would have to accept if they allow
the MIME structure to be destroyed (by calling a function like the one
I speculated about above).

--Steve Berman