Losing G p (group params)

[Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com>]

The following message is a courtesy copy of an article
that has been posted to gnu.emacs.gnus as well.

   [ Message posted to gnu.emacs.gnus and ding list ] 

It has happened to me on several occasions where I inadvertantly
either kill a group or groups and there by loose the group param
settings.

I do keep backups of .newsrc.eld but often don't notice the problem
until quite a lot of new material has been written to .newsrc.eld,
making bodily overwrite with backup a non starter.  Meaning only the
tedious hand route will restore things.

Especially painful if you have to resort to `G c' (group customize) to
remind you how some things are written.

This information is neatly presented in `G p' buffers for editing, so
I wondered if the code that does that, could be made to loop thru all
groups and print out a file with the group params info listed like in
`G p' buffers, but with a few additions like:

	GROUPNAME
	
	existing `G p' code  ...
	existing `G p' code  ...
	existing `G p' code  ...
        [...]
	-- 
	
	GROUPNAME
	
	existing `G p' code  ...
	existing `G p' code  ...
	existing `G p' code  ...
        [...]
	-- 
[...] and onward

And have this handy list written to a file.

I'm thinking of a batch command running this daily or as often as
seems necessary, and keeping some number of these generated files on
hand.

Sections could just be yanked into a `G p' buffer to re-establish
settings in the event of a problem.

So, I guess my question is first would such a looping construct,
using existing code and editing, be a major undertaking?  Or is this
something a lisp impaired hacker could concoct with a little help?

And secondly, if this would be a good addition to gnus armaments. 
Something along the lines of `nnml-generate-nov-data-bases'

 (`gnus-generate-group-parameters-list') could then be batched easily by
anyone who is as careless as me.

Maybe a similar function (`gnus-generate--group-edit-list'), for `G E'
information.