Re: What exactly is a NOV header

[Anupam Sengupta <anupamsg@gmail.com>]

>>>>> "Madhu" == Madhu  <enometh@meer.net> writes:

    Madhu> The OP is satisfied with your other post.  So no point flaming this
    Madhu> thread, however

Madhu, I am _not_ flaming here. As I pointed out below, the info node references
the NOV headers, but does not define them - and hence is not what the OP is
looking for. Therefore my response to your node link.

[...]

    Madhu> What is described in the info page is not NOV but the gnus internal
    Madhu> format which is closely related.  

Correct. The internal format is described here. A better info node where the
actual NOV is defined to a better extent is:

       (info "gnus(Terminology)")

which has a short description of NOV.    

    Madhu> The info page stated "Internally Gnus uses a format for storing
    Madhu> article headers that corresponds to the NOV format in a mysterious
    Madhu> fashion.  One could almost suspect that the author looked at the NOV
    Madhu> specification and just shamelessly _stole_ the entire thing, and one
    Madhu> would be right."

    Madhu> And I had used the description there to grok nov databases.



    Madhu> The URL you provided in this post also just referred to the NOV
    Madhu> headers and no definition of what NOV headers are is provided.

The URLs I had provided are FAQs on NOV and contain additional cross-references
at the end which the OP can use if he/she needs additional information.

E.g., see the URL 

      http://quimby.gnus.org/notes/nov-faq.txt 

(provided in my second post) and grep for

          "Subject: What is the format of the NOV database?"

This goes into the NOV headers in detail. To quote the FAQ response:

,----
| [this is stolen from Geoff Collyer's newsoverview(5) man page]
| 
| Each newsgroup directory contains a file named  `.overview',
| containing  one-line  summaries  of  articles in that group.  Fields
| are separated by tabs, and any tabs  or  newlines  in the  original
| articles  headers  have  been  replaced  with spaces.  The fields are,
| in  order:  article  number  (file name),  subject,  author, date,
| message-id, references, byte  count, line count, and optionally other
| headers, as arranged  locally  (none  are  supplied  by  the  database
| maintenance software, as shipped).  The line-count and references
| field may  be  empty.   If the optional other headers are present,
| they include their header keyword and  colon;  if  they  are absent
| entirely, the tab after the line-count field may also be absent.
| 
| ie:
| 
|     artid|subject|From|Date|Message-Id|References|bytecount|linecount|\
| 		Optional-Header: Stuff
| 
| where | represents a tab and \ a line continuation (there are no 
| continuation lines in the Overview entry, it's just so that the above
| line fits in 80 columns).
| 
| Remember that header keywords in optional headers should be matched
| case insensitively.
`----

    Madhu> "Please check before criticizing"?

I will not respond to this since carrying this further *will* lead to an
unnecessary continuation of this thread with little information value and high
S/N ratio.  However, to clarify, the intent was to respond to *what* the OP
wanted (which has been fulfilled, as evidenced by his confirmation post), than
to *criticize* your response.


-- 
Anupam