From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.emacs.gnus.general/46832 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Russ Allbery Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.gnus.general Subject: Re: Why does Gnus generates Lines: header in mail? Date: Sun, 29 Sep 2002 18:57:59 -0700 Organization: The Eyrie Sender: owner-ding@hpc.uh.edu Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1033351163 4123 127.0.0.1 (30 Sep 2002 01:59:23 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 30 Sep 2002 01:59:23 +0000 (UTC) Return-path: Original-Received: from malifon.math.uh.edu ([129.7.128.13]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 17vpqE-00014M-00 for ; Mon, 30 Sep 2002 03:59:22 +0200 Original-Received: from sina.hpc.uh.edu ([129.7.128.10] ident=lists) by malifon.math.uh.edu with esmtp (Exim 3.20 #1) id 17vppQ-0005Y8-00; Sun, 29 Sep 2002 20:58:32 -0500 Original-Received: by sina.hpc.uh.edu (TLB v0.09a (1.20 tibbs 1996/10/09 22:03:07)); Sun, 29 Sep 2002 20:59:13 -0500 (CDT) Original-Received: from sclp3.sclp.com (qmailr@sclp3.sclp.com [209.196.61.66]) by sina.hpc.uh.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id UAA23991 for ; Sun, 29 Sep 2002 20:59:02 -0500 (CDT) Original-Received: (qmail 20283 invoked by alias); 30 Sep 2002 01:58:16 -0000 Original-Received: (qmail 20278 invoked from network); 30 Sep 2002 01:58:16 -0000 Original-Received: from windlord.stanford.edu (171.64.13.23) by gnus.org with SMTP; 30 Sep 2002 01:58:16 -0000 Original-Received: (qmail 7390 invoked by uid 50); 30 Sep 2002 01:57:59 -0000 Original-To: ding@gnus.org In-Reply-To: (Stainless Steel Rat's message of "29 Sep 2002 21:31:40 -0400") Original-Lines: 31 User-Agent: Gnus/5.090008 (Oort Gnus v0.08) XEmacs/21.4 (Honest Recruiter, sparc-sun-solaris2.6) Precedence: list X-Majordomo: 1.94.jlt7 Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.gnus.general:46832 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.gnus.general:46832 Stainless Steel Rat writes: > For example, POP does not have a mechanism by which it can determine the > size of messages. But it can get all the headers. A POP client can > grab the headers of all messages, check the Lines headers for each, and > skip any messages that exceed a user-defined threshold. This is useful, > for example, if you happen to be a travelling sales engineer currently > somewhere in India using a cellular/gsm phone at 9600 baud to download > your mail but don't want the 150MB PowerPoint presentations that your > manager sent out to everyone, at least not until you get back to your > office and a T1. I am not making this up. I have an SE who routinely > does this. Do enough mail clients generate accurate Lines headers to make this worthwhile? > On the Usenet side of things, Gnus Agent uses Lines headers the same way, > to determine if a message qualifies as "long" and does not automatically > retrieve articles that exceed the "long" threshold. It shouldn't. It should be using overview for that information. A huge percentage of Lines headers in Usenet articles are simply completely wrong (such as only counting half of a multipart/alternative, or being calculated prior to signature appending, or simply being completely unrelated to reality). This is why USEFOR is going to remove the header completely for Usenet; for Usenet, it's worthless. Overview is required to include a line count. -- Russ Allbery (rra@stanford.edu)