Re: [Nmh-workers] New new/fn/fp/unseen program

[Eric Gillespie]

Peter Maydell <address@hidden> writes:

> (5) your behaviour if no unseen-sequence is specified (assume it's
> called "unseen") isn't the same as the rest of nmh, although I'm
> not sure what it ought to do instead (fail with an error, maybe)

mh-profile(5) indicates that "unseen" is the default.

> >  folders -fast -recur > .folders
> 
> If you're introducing a new standard config file then that definitely
> needs to be documented, with its own manpage. It probably ought

Hm.  This doesn't seem like a config file to me, but more of a
state file, like context.  If you want 'man mh-folders' (or
whatever) to work, how about making mh-folders.5 a symlink to new.1?

> to allow a custom name to be used (ie to have an entry in .mh_profile
> giving the name). Anything that needs to create folders needs to be
> configurable whether or not to update the file with the new folder
> name, both on the command line and via .mh_profile.

Ugh, I have no interest in such behavior, and consider it
actively harmful to the feature.  I keep the file carefully
sorted, and with some folders excluded, and I think someone else
in this thread said they do something similar.  If this is going
to be a requirement for the new command to go in, then I
retract it.

> The new 'unseen' etc need to behave sensibly in the absence of this
> file (perhaps scanning all folders?).

This is a good idea.  Would this adress the previous concern?

> Because concat() is varargs, and the C standard doesn't guarantee
> that NULL is a pointer (it might be of integer type). So in theory

Ah, I didn't realize it might just be 0.  I may as well fix this
one while I'm here, regardless of the rest of mh :).

I'll be back in a week or two (I'm on leave with a new baby :)
with the following changes:

- handle multiple unseen sequences (and other sequences)
- fix the one hard-coded "unseen"
- configurable .folders in .mh_profile (new: -f my.folders)

I think that covers it.  Things I'm not doing (yet):

- changing the command names (what should they be called?)
- not using system(3) in unseen, or dropping unseen altogether
- man page (I'll write it if this goes in, and it will document
  folders -fast -recur > `mhpath +`/.folders)

-- 
Eric Gillespie <*> address@hidden