I still think that numeric folder names rise questions: Consider the
above example. cur = inbox/11100. What should "refile next:22 +foo" do?
Move the numeric folder? Leave a copy with the name ",11111" around?
(Note that you can't have hardlinks to directories on the filesystems
I know.)
I think it should do the same thing I hope to make scan do, i.e.
give a warning something like "Can't handle message <number> because
<reason>, skipping..."
In the case of a sequence like next:22, I think it makes sense for
the skipped problematic "message" still to count in the 22, since "skipped"
is not the same as "not there".
I agree, because I think "scan next:22", "show next:22",
"refile next:22 +foo", etc. should all operate on the same set of
messages. And since (due to permission issues for example) show and
refile might choke on different files we only can guarantee that by
always counting everything being there.
[...]
If we decide, that nmh tools should explicitely ignore any non-regular
files, could this be done by a change in one central place? As far as
I know the source I doubt it.
Whenever I get time I refactor the nmh code to gather common stuff into
one place. In fact, it was probably this kind of change that introduced
the "+.." problem.
I'll *try* to refactor as part of these modifications. Wherever the
refactor can be done easily I'll do it first and then introduce the
change. In other cases I might decide it's easier not to refactor yet.
Great. Any such effort will sure help a lot! Error handling and recovery
is sure one of the more difficult things to do in a central manner
though...
I think it would make much more sense for the nmh commands to be
fault tolerant rather than restrict what can be done with folder-creating
commands, since there are so many other ways for nasty directory entries
to be created (i.e. by non-nmh commands).
Perhaps there is a misunderstanding here:
...
No, I don't want to restrict the folder-creating commands in any way.
When I say that numeric folder names should not be a feature, I only
mean that it shouldn't be encouraged and when they break something
somewhere then nobody should be surprised.
Does the diagnostic I describe above satisfy you?
All you have written seems quite sane and desirable to me. If you really
have the time and think implementing this is fun, then go ahead. I'm
glad to see somebody is working on nmh again!
Regards,
Harald
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