Change request: remove "/" from gnus-invalid-group-regexp

Change request: remove "/" from gnus-invalid-group-regexp

[Kai Großjohann]

Allowing "/" in group names is important for nnimap users.

I wonder if something bad happens if somebody creates an nnml group
with "/" in its name?

Maybe the set of allowed characters could depend on the backend?  But
this is probably a major undertaking.  Especially given that `G m'
asks for the group name first, and only then for the server/backend.

Opinions?

kai
-- 
Linux provides a nice `poweroff' command, but where is `poweron'?

Re: Change request: remove "/" from gnus-invalid-group-regexp

[Paul Jarc]

Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) wrote:
> Allowing "/" in group names is important for nnimap users.
>
> I wonder if something bad happens if somebody creates an nnml group
> with "/" in its name?
>
> Maybe the set of allowed characters could depend on the backend?  But
> this is probably a major undertaking.  Especially given that `G m'
> asks for the group name first, and only then for the server/backend.

The only obstacle, I think, is that if nnchoke-request-create-group
returns nil, Gnus doesn't notice the error.  nnmaildir already fails
this way for group names it doesn't like.


paul

Re: Change request: remove "/" from gnus-invalid-group-regexp

[Kai Großjohann]

prj@po.cwru.edu (Paul Jarc) writes:

> Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) wrote:
>>
>> I wonder if something bad happens if somebody creates an nnml group
>> with "/" in its name?
> 
> The only obstacle, I think, is that if nnchoke-request-create-group
> returns nil, Gnus doesn't notice the error.  nnmaildir already fails
> this way for group names it doesn't like.

Well, Gnus should notice whether nnchoke-request-create-group has
failed.  Some mechanism should be designed and documented, and then
all backends should be changed to follow that design.

But what I was thinking about is more like that nnml.el converts dots
to slashes in the group name and then creates the right directory.
But that means you can have two names for the same group, which could
greatly confuse Gnus.

Right now, you can't have two names for the same group because "/" is
disallowed in group names.

Hm.

kai
-- 
Linux provides a nice `poweroff' command, but where is `poweron'?

Re: Change request: remove "/" from gnus-invalid-group-regexp

[Paul Jarc]

Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) wrote:
> Well, Gnus should notice whether nnchoke-request-create-group has
> failed.  Some mechanism should be designed and documented, and then
> all backends should be changed to follow that design.

The "Backend Interface" node of the manual says:
# Functions that fail should return `nil' as the return value.

The mechanism has already been designed and documented.  It just
hasn't been implemented.

> But what I was thinking about is more like that nnml.el converts dots
> to slashes in the group name and then creates the right directory.
> But that means you can have two names for the same group, which could
> greatly confuse Gnus.
>
> Right now, you can't have two names for the same group because "/" is
> disallowed in group names.

I'm not sure I see the problem.  nnml converts dots in group names to
slashes in path names and vice versa, right?  To avoid problems, it
can just ignore path names with dots and group names with slashes.


paul

Re: Change request: remove "/" from gnus-invalid-group-regexp

[Paul Jarc]

I wrote:
> Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) wrote:
>> Right now, you can't have two names for the same group because "/" is
>> disallowed in group names.
>
> I'm not sure I see the problem.

Ok, I get it now: Gnus currently prohibits group names with slashes.
(I just read the other thread.)  I think Gnus should not assume that
backends can't handle particular group names.  It should screen out
only the names that would cause problems for Gnus itself.
nnchoke-request-create-group should screen out names it doesn't like,
and Gnus can handle that when it comes up.  backends should not rely
on Gnus to screen out names they don't like, since that varies among
backends (or maybe even individual servers?).

Ideally (or maybe not), backends could encode unfriendly names using
only friendly characters for storage purposes, and decode them back
for Gnus.  But rejecting unfriendly names works too.


paul