From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Sascha Wilde Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel,gmane.emacs.gnus.general Subject: Re: Gnus maildir backend issues Date: Sat, 03 Nov 2007 20:04:55 +0100 Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1194116454 12104 80.91.229.12 (3 Nov 2007 19:00:54 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2007 19:00:54 +0000 (UTC) Cc: ding To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Nov 03 20:00:57 2007 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1IoOEr-0003kq-3B for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 03 Nov 2007 20:00:57 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1IoOEg-0001SO-UJ for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 03 Nov 2007 15:00:46 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1IoOEH-0001CS-3P for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 03 Nov 2007 15:00:21 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1IoOEF-0001Bk-Ae for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 03 Nov 2007 15:00:20 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1IoOEF-0001Bd-6n for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 03 Nov 2007 15:00:19 -0400 Original-Received: from ns.km1136.keymachine.de ([62.141.58.119] helo=km1136.keymachine.de) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS-1.0:DHE_RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1IoOEE-0005Nt-Ex for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 03 Nov 2007 15:00:18 -0400 Original-Received: from kenny.sha-bang.de (xdslcz151.osnanet.de [89.166.153.151]) (authenticated bits=0) by km1136.keymachine.de (8.12.11.20060308/8.12.11) with ESMTP id lA3J07Y7000521; Sat, 3 Nov 2007 20:00:07 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=kenny.sha-bang.de) by kenny.sha-bang.de with esmtp (Kenny MUA v.0409034.42) ID 1IoOIh-0006St-UV; Sat, 03 Nov 2007 20:04:55 +0100 In-Reply-To: (Paul Jarc's message of "Fri, 02 Nov 2007 14:34:56 -0400") User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.0.50 (gnu/linux) X-detected-kernel: by monty-python.gnu.org: Linux 2.4-2.6 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:82441 gmane.emacs.gnus.general:65540 Archived-At: prj@po.cwru.edu (Paul Jarc) wrote: > Sascha Wilde wrote: >> 1. the backend creates empty files in .nnmaildir/num for each mail seen >> and never deletes them. This results in thousands and thousands of >> (empty) files > > Not quite. There are thousands and thousands of links to a small > number of empty files (often just one per maildir), so the amount of > disk space used is very small. I wasn't worrying about disc space, but a bit about inodes, but as they are mainly links it turns out my concern wasn't justified. :) >> I don't understand why these files are needed and I definitely >> consider it a bug, that they are never removed. > > They're used to keep track of article number assignments. If you > remove them, you may cause some data corruption. Hu? I removed the entire .nnmaildir sometimes and had no problems. Even more, I wouldn't expect to encounter an problems as I would expect the original maildir to be self contained. Actually for most other MUAs it is, isn't it? > Is this causing any actual problems for you, or is it an aesthetic > objection? Well.. First of all I consider it problematic in general, to store meta data forever. Why would one need any information on mails deleted years ago? (You might call this "aesthetic".) The actual problem is: We are having a bunch of maildir folders on an nfs volume and sometimes want to do operations like find-greps on all of them. In this case all the thousands of files significantly slow down operations -- or excluding all the .nnmaildir directories makes entering the commands more cumbersome. Not a big issue, but annoying. >> It would be great to have an option, that says: only move mails to >> cur when the folders summary was displayed. > > I can see how that might be useful, but it would take a significant > amount of work. While it would be very helpful for our current use case (being two, soon three admins working together on one shared maildir spam folder, me using gnus and my coworker using mutt), I have to admit, that it probably isn't worth much afford. cheers sascha -- Sascha Wilde : "Ist es nicht schon schlimm genug, dass ICH hier rumtrolle?" : (Henning Leise in d.o.c.)