Re: pop3.el itegration with netrc.el

[Reiner Steib <reinersteib+gmane@imap.cc>]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1649 bytes --]

On Thu, Oct 14 2004, Simon Josefsson wrote:

> "Ted Zlatanov" <tzz@lifelogs.com> writes:
>
>> pop3.el seems to be separate from the rest of Gnus, so I'm not sure if
>> I should add netrc.el (authinfo) support to it - then pop3.el would
>> also depend on gnus-encrypt.el.  Please advise.
>
> There are many incompatible forks of pop3.el, the copy in Gnus CVS
> used to be one of them.  I see now that the copies in Gnus CVS and
> Emacs CVS are in sync.  I'm not sure how that happened, but it is a
> good thing.

I've merged the changes from Emacs to Gnus initially and Miles keeps
them in sync now.  The most important thing was
`pop3-leave-mail-on-server'.  I'm not sure if this feature (introduced
in Emacs) was a good idea in the first place (and I don't know if it
works reliably [1]).  But if upgrading from Gnus 5.9 to 5.11 would
suddenly delete the mails on the server after pop (when
`pop3-leave-mail-on-server' is ignored as in Gnus 5.10.6), people
won't be happy ("Gnus deleted all my mail!!!1").

> So perhaps we can make this one the canonical copy, and add new
> features to it.  I'd say go ahead.

Dave Love pointed out that `pop3.el' could be used outside Gnus and
suggested to remove the nn-whatever dependencies.  If we think that
this is a valuable goal, we should avoid adding further dependencies.

,----[ http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.pretest.bugs/3974 ]
| pop3.el shouldn't use nnheader-accept-process-output, so it can be
| used outside Gnus.
`----

Bye, Reiner.

[1] I think I'll add a warning, see the attached patch.
-- 
       ,,,
      (o o)
---ooO-(_)-Ooo---  |  PGP key available  |  http://rsteib.home.pages.de/

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #2: rs-pop-leave.patch --]
[-- Type: text/x-patch, Size: 2058 bytes --]

Index: lisp/pop3.el
===================================================================
RCS file: /usr/local/cvsroot/gnus/lisp/pop3.el,v
retrieving revision 6.23.2.2
diff -u -r6.23.2.2 pop3.el
--- lisp/pop3.el	22 Aug 2004 21:48:11 -0000	6.23.2.2
+++ lisp/pop3.el	30 Aug 2004 16:43:52 -0000
@@ -55,7 +55,14 @@
 values are 'apop.")
 
 (defvar pop3-leave-mail-on-server nil
-  "*Non-nil if the mail is to be left on the POP server after fetching.")
+  "*Non-nil if the mail is to be left on the POP server after fetching.
+
+If the `pop3-leave-mail-on-server' is non-`nil' the mail is to be
+left on the POP server after fetching.  Note that POP servers
+maintain no state information between sessions, so what the
+client believes is there and what is actually there may not match
+up.  If they do not, then the whole thing can fall apart and
+leave you with a corrupt mailbox.")
 
 (defvar pop3-timestamp nil
   "Timestamp returned when initially connected to the POP server.
Index: texi/gnus.texi
===================================================================
RCS file: /usr/local/cvsroot/gnus/texi/gnus.texi,v
retrieving revision 6.603.2.4
diff -u -r6.603.2.4 gnus.texi
--- texi/gnus.texi	26 Aug 2004 09:59:57 -0000	6.603.2.4
+++ texi/gnus.texi	30 Aug 2004 16:43:53 -0000
@@ -13528,10 +13528,16 @@
 
 @end table
 
+@vindex pop3-movemail
+@vindex pop3-leave-mail-on-server
 If the @code{:program} and @code{:function} keywords aren't specified,
 @code{pop3-movemail} will be used.  If the
 @code{pop3-leave-mail-on-server} is non-@code{nil} the mail is to be
-left on the POP server after fetching.
+left on the @acronym{POP} server after fetching when using
+@code{pop3-movemail}.  Note that POP servers maintain no state
+information between sessions, so what the client believes is there and
+what is actually there may not match up.  If they do not, then the whole
+thing can fall apart and leave you with a corrupt mailbox.
 
 Here are some examples.  Fetch from the default @acronym{POP} server,
 using the default user name, and default fetcher: