nnir oddity in group names

nnir oddity in group names

[Harry Putnam]

I noticed this oddity in using nnir with glimpse.

Summary:
Nnir normally wants group names entered in dot format even if they are
in slash format under ~/Mail.  

For nnir `~/Mail/topic/awk' becomes topic.awk  
Described in the details below, I find if a group name is symlinked
under ~/Mail like: ~/Mail/comp@/unix/questions, then nnir
fails unless the name is submitted in unix slash style.. like:
comp/unix/questions

Details:

I have nnmail set to use unix style file names.  So I have a number of
groups that are in directories like ~/Mail/t/awk ~/Mail/t/procmail The
`t' stood for `topic' originally.  these are groups where I send
edited messages that I want to keep, containing interesting info about
the topics indicated.

Using nnir to search these is as easy as `C-u G G' <enter query>
and then the <enter group name>.  But in the format nnir understands.  That
is,  t.awk or t.procmail.

Recently I've added a number of nnml groups that are really News
groups.  These groups are formed by rsyncing the directories under
~/News/agent/nntp/<server> to a holding directory (/n2m), where the
Newsgoups grow as more rsyncs are done.  This directory looks like:

ls -F  /n2m
comp/ gnu/ mailing/ 
gnu contains the obvious ones gnu/emacs/gnus  gnu/emacs/help
Under comp is comp/unix/questions  comp/unix/shells  etc
The mailing directory contains the FreeBSD lists from a mail2news gateway.

So `ls -F' /n2m/mailing/freebsd
current/  doc/  hackers/  hardware/  ports/  questions/

These groups are added to nnml by symlinking like this:
~/Mail/comp@ -->/n2m/comp/  or ~/Mail/gnu@ -->/n2m/emacs

Then opening gnus server buffer (`^') hitting enter on the (only) nnml
server, then subscribing to the new groups available behind the
symlinks.

It is necessary to run nnml-generate-nov-databases occasionally to
get  the new articles being added by rsync into the nov files.

When I use nnir to search these groups like:  C-u G G <enter
query><RET> <enter group><RET>.

Nnir fails if I enter the group name as in the first (t.awk) example:
   comp.unix.questions

And will only work if I use the actual unix style name:
   comp/unix/questions

The only difference between the symlinked groups and ~/Mail/t/awk is
the symlink, so I'm assuming that's what is causing this minor glitch.  

Near as I can tell from the .glimpse directory
.glimpse_filenames.   Glimpse sees the symlinked files in the same way
it sees the ~/Mail/t/awk files:

>From .glimpse_filenames:
/home/reader/Mail/t/awk/133
/home/reader/Mail/t/awk/132

[...]

/home/reader/Mail/gnu/emacs/help/46696
/home/reader/Mail/gnu/emacs/help/46694

Re: nnir oddity in group names

[Kai Großjohann]

On 04 Aug 2000, Harry Putnam wrote:

> Nnir fails if I enter the group name as in the first (t.awk)
>    example: comp.unix.questions
> 
> And will only work if I use the actual unix style name:
>    comp/unix/questions

Hm.  Amazing.  You are talking about entering the group spec, right?
This parameter that you are asked for when you do C-u G G but not with
just G G?

nnir-run-glimpse calls glimpse like this:

    glimpse -H $h -W -l -y ... -F "$p;$g" $query

$h means nnir-glimpse-home, $p means nnir-glimpse-remove-prefix, and
$g is the group spec that you enter after C-u G G.

It appears to me that entering `foo.bar' for the group spec will match
directory names `foo/bar' as well as `fooXbar', say.

But there is one difference between `t.awk' and `comp.unix.questions':
the length.  I think there is a rather short length limit on Glimpse
queries.  Maybe 16 characters?  Or 32?

Do you think that this might be the problem?  I wish there was a way
around this, but I don't know of one.

Hm.

But maybe I could use grep:

    glimpse -H $h -W -l -y -F $p $query | grep -e $g

Do you think that this might help?  Could somebody try this to see if
it does?

Another idea might be to use the keep-lines Lisp function to do the
job of grep.  This might be even better, since call-process might not
be able to do the pipe thing.

kai
-- 
I like BOTH kinds of music.

Re: nnir oddity in group names

[Harry Putnam]

Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) writes:

> On 04 Aug 2000, Harry Putnam wrote:
> 
> > Nnir fails if I enter the group name as in the first (t.awk)
> >    example: comp.unix.questions
> > 
> > And will only work if I use the actual unix style name:
> >    comp/unix/questions
> 
> Hm.  Amazing.  You are talking about entering the group spec, right?
> This parameter that you are asked for when you do C-u G G but not with
> just G G?

Yup, thats the one.
> 
> nnir-run-glimpse calls glimpse like this:
> 
>     glimpse -H $h -W -l -y ... -F "$p;$g" $query
> 
> $h means nnir-glimpse-home, $p means nnir-glimpse-remove-prefix, and
> $g is the group spec that you enter after C-u G G.
> 
> It appears to me that entering `foo.bar' for the group spec will match
> directory names `foo/bar' as well as `fooXbar', say.
> 
> But there is one difference between `t.awk' and `comp.unix.questions':
> the length.  I think there is a rather short length limit on Glimpse
> queries.  Maybe 16 characters?  Or 32?
> 
> Do you think that this might be the problem?  I wish there was a way
> around this, but I don't know of one.

I think  not.  Heres why... further experiments show:

1) C-u G G <gnus;unplugged><RET> <gnu.emacs.gnus> <RET> fails
2) C-u G G <gnus;unplugged><RET> <gnus> <RET> works

So far those two experiments would tend to confirm you hypothesis.. 
read on.

3) C-u G G <gnus;unplugged><RET> <gnu/emacs/gnus> <RET> works
(Same length query string works in number three)

> But maybe I could use grep:
> 
>     glimpse -H $h -W -l -y -F $p $query | grep -e $g
> 
> Do you think that this might help?  Could somebody try this to see if
> it does?
> 
> Another idea might be to use the keep-lines Lisp function to do the
> job of grep.  This might be even better, since call-process might not
> be able to do the pipe thing.

Didn't follow the last two suggestions... sorry.

Re: nnir oddity in group names

[Kai Großjohann]

On 04 Aug 2000, Harry Putnam wrote:

>> But maybe I could use grep:
>> 
>>     glimpse -H $h -W -l -y -F $p $query | grep -e $g
>> 
>> Do you think that this might help?  Could somebody try this to see
>> if it does?
>> 
>> Another idea might be to use the keep-lines Lisp function to do the
>> job of grep.  This might be even better, since call-process might
>> not be able to do the pipe thing.
> 
> Didn't follow the last two suggestions... sorry.

I have now tried to implement the above.

nnir.el now calls glimpse like this:

    glimpse -H $h -W -l -y -F $p $query

After glimpse has finished, it does (keep-lines grouspec) where
groupspec is the group specification you have entered.  This means,
all lines which match this regexp are kept, and all other lines are
deleted. 

kai
-- 
I like BOTH kinds of music.