Re: mail fetching speed problems 5.2.25

[David Moore <dmoore@UCSD.EDU>]

David Moore <dmoore@ucsd.edu> writes:
>
> 	If this has been fixed, please let me know, I'll be upgrading to
> red gnus this weekend anyways.

> *** This is a structural problem with how gnus queries backends for new
> *** messages, but might be fixable with adding some smarts to
> *** nnmail-get-active or nnml-request-list.

Oh boy, a self reply.

	Looking at the current rgnus source, the same problem seems to
exist.  nnmail-activate looks very wrong to me, since the nnml and other
backends seem to set their own BACKEND-group-alist by calling
nnmail-get-active directly.  nnmail-activate calls BACKEND-request-list
which generates the list, and then calls nnmail-get-active a second time
on the same data.

	Changing nnmail-activate to not make the unneeded call and also
changing the stored timestamp from (current-time) to 'file-time'
(because of possible nfs and other interactions), I've now cut the time
to fetch a single piece of new mail from 61 seconds to about 15, when
using a non-byte-compiled version of nnmail-activate.  Of course, a lot
of time is still being wasted here.


New version:

(defun nnmail-activate (backend &optional force)
  (let (file timestamp file-time)
    (if (or (not (symbol-value (intern (format "%s-group-alist" backend))))
	    force
	    (and (setq file (condition-case ()
				(symbol-value (intern (format "%s-active-file" 
							      backend)))
			      (error nil)))
		 (setq file-time (nth 5 (file-attributes file)))
		 (or (not
		      (setq timestamp
			    (condition-case ()
				(symbol-value (intern
					       (format "%s-active-timestamp" 
						       backend)))
			      (error 'none))))
		     (not (consp timestamp))
		     (equal timestamp '(0 0))
		     (> (nth 0 file-time) (nth 0 timestamp))
		     (and (= (nth 0 file-time) (nth 0 timestamp))
			  (> (nth 1 file-time) (nth 1 timestamp))))))
	(save-excursion
	  (or (eq timestamp 'none)
	      (set (intern (format "%s-active-timestamp" backend)) 
;;; dmoore@ucsd.edu 25.10.96
;;; it's not always the case that current-time
;;; does correspond to changes in the file's time.  So just compare
;;; the file's new time against its own previous time.
;;;		   (current-time)
		   file-time
		   ))
	  (funcall (intern (format "%s-request-list" backend)))
;;; dmoore@ucsd.edu 25.10.96
;;; BACKEND-request-list already does this itself!
;;;	  (set (intern (format "%s-group-alist" backend)) 
;;;	       (nnmail-get-active))
	  ))
    t))

-- 
David Moore <dmoore@ucsd.edu>       | Computer Systems Lab      __o
UCSD Dept. Computer Science - 0114  | Work: (619) 534-8604    _ \<,_
La Jolla, CA 92093-0114             | Fax:  (619) 534-1445   (_)/ (_)
<URL:http://oj.egbt.org/dmoore/>    | Solo Furnace Creek 508 -- 1996!