Re: read mail in mbox files

[Richard Riley]

Glyn Millington <wistanswick@linuxmail.org> writes:

> Richard Riley <rileyrg@googlemail.com> writes:
>
>> asjo@koldfront.dk (Adam Sjøgren) writes:
>>
>>> On Tue, 18 Jan 2011 15:51:54 +0100, Richard wrote:
>>>
>>>> Why is this a "spool" directory?
>>>
>>>> The word "spool" is throwing me. I thought "spool" meant it was
>>>> spooled to you and then stored in a backend .. like nnml.
>>> A "(news)spool" in news-related terms is usually where the articles
>>> are stored in a newsserver (the meaning used here).
>>> A mail-spool is usually where mail is stored locally until the user
>>> fetches it (/var/mail or /var/spool/mail).
>>> In the documentation nnml is described as the backend that most
>>> closely resembles a newsspool, so that is probably where the choice
>>> of word comes from. And perhaps also some of the confusion.
>>
>> I think in the context it's incorrect but wouldnt put my mortgage on
>> it ...
>>
>> nnml-directory is not a spool really : the var/spool source is.
>>
>> And checking values now, I see, and amazingly confusing, that
>>
>> ,----
>> | Its value is "~/.emacs.d/Mail/archive"
>> `----
>>
>> How I dont know as I set
>>
>>   (setq nnml-directory "~/Mail")
>>
>> bah ;) I need to start all over again ...
>
> Hi Richard,
>
> Here's a snip from my .gnus file.  It may be totally irrelevant, becasue
> I have een smewhat confused by this discussion!! - but it may help ;-)
>
>
>
>
> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
> ;,----
> ;| MAIL SETTINGS AND MAIL SORTING 
> ---------------------------------------------
> ;`----
>
> ; nnml is, as you know a mail backend - the nnml (I wonder if nnml stand
> ; for Not NorMaL) format is what results when gnus grabs mail from the
> ; two mail sources below. I use getmail to dump all my mail into
> ; /home/glyn/Mail/inbox; system mail goes to /var/spool/mail/glyn.  gnus
> ; grabs mail from both sources, I assume transmogrifies it by elisp-magic
> ; into nnml format, and then shoves it through my fancy-splitting
> ; set-up. (Just a fraction of that here!) I read the mail from the groups
> ; created by the fancy splitting - SLACKLIST, FREEBSD, FVWM etc etc
>
> (setq 
>        gnus-secondary-select-methods '((nnml ""))
>        mail-sources '((file :path "/home/glyn/Mail/inbox")
>                       (file :path "/var/spool/mail/glyn")))
>


Thanks for the examples. its amazing how many different ways people get
this going.

My "dummy" question of the minute here is:-

mail-sources : how does nnml know its got control of them? What about
other mail backends?

The docs say the mail *backends* look there.