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Info Node: (gnus)Optional Back End Functions

(gnus)Optional Back End Functions


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Optional Back End Functions
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`(nnchoke-retrieve-groups GROUPS &optional SERVER)'
     GROUPS is a list of groups, and this function should request data
     on all those groups.  How it does it is of no concern to Gnus, but
     it should attempt to do this in a speedy fashion.

     The return value of this function can be either `active' or
     `group', which says what the format of the result data is.  The
     former is in the same format as the data from
     `nnchoke-request-list', while the latter is a buffer full of lines
     in the same format as `nnchoke-request-group' gives.

          group-buffer = *active-line / *group-status

`(nnchoke-request-update-info GROUP INFO &optional SERVER)'
     A Gnus group info (Note: Group Info) is handed to the back end
     for alterations.  This comes in handy if the back end really
     carries all the information (as is the case with virtual and imap
     groups).  This function should destructively alter the info to
     suit its needs, and should return the (altered) group info.

     There should be no result data from this function.

`(nnchoke-request-type GROUP &optional ARTICLE)'
     When the user issues commands for "sending news" (`F' in the
     summary buffer, for instance), Gnus has to know whether the
     article the user is following up on is news or mail.  This
     function should return `news' if ARTICLE in GROUP is news, `mail'
     if it is mail and `unknown' if the type can't be decided.  (The
     ARTICLE parameter is necessary in `nnvirtual' groups which might
     very well combine mail groups and news groups.)  Both GROUP and
     ARTICLE may be `nil'.

     There should be no result data from this function.

`(nnchoke-request-set-mark GROUP ACTION &optional SERVER)'
     Set/remove/add marks on articles.  Normally Gnus handles the
     article marks (such as read, ticked, expired etc) internally, and
     store them in `~/.newsrc.eld'.  Some back ends (such as IMAP)
     however carry all information about the articles on the server, so
     Gnus need to propagate the mark information to the server.

     ACTION is a list of mark setting requests, having this format:

          (RANGE ACTION MARK)

     Range is a range of articles you wish to update marks on.  Action
     is `set', `add' or `del', respectively used for removing all
     existing marks and setting them as specified, adding (preserving
     the marks not mentioned) mark and removing (preserving the marks
     not mentioned) marks.  Mark is a list of marks; where each mark is
     a symbol.  Currently used marks are `read', `tick', `reply',
     `expire', `killed', `dormant', `save', `download' and `unsend',
     but your back end should, if possible, not limit itself to these.

     Given contradictory actions, the last action in the list should be
     the effective one.  That is, if your action contains a request to
     add the `tick' mark on article 1 and, later in the list, a request
     to remove the mark on the same article, the mark should in fact be
     removed.

     An example action list:

          (((5 12 30) 'del '(tick))
           ((10 . 90) 'add '(read expire))
           ((92 94) 'del '(read)))

     The function should return a range of articles it wasn't able to
     set the mark on (currently not used for anything).

     There should be no result data from this function.

`(nnchoke-request-update-mark GROUP ARTICLE MARK)'
     If the user tries to set a mark that the back end doesn't like,
     this function may change the mark.  Gnus will use whatever this
     function returns as the mark for ARTICLE instead of the original
     MARK.  If the back end doesn't care, it must return the original
     MARK, and not `nil' or any other type of garbage.

     The only use for this I can see is what `nnvirtual' does with
     it--if a component group is auto-expirable, marking an article as
     read in the virtual group should result in the article being
     marked as expirable.

     There should be no result data from this function.

`(nnchoke-request-scan &optional GROUP SERVER)'
     This function may be called at any time (by Gnus or anything else)
     to request that the back end check for incoming articles, in one
     way or another.  A mail back end will typically read the spool
     file or query the POP server when this function is invoked.  The
     GROUP doesn't have to be heeded--if the back end decides that it
     is too much work just scanning for a single group, it may do a
     total scan of all groups.  It would be nice, however, to keep
     things local if that's practical.

     There should be no result data from this function.

`(nnchoke-request-group-description GROUP &optional SERVER)'
     The result data from this function should be a description of
     GROUP.

          description-line = name <TAB> description eol
          name             = <string>
          description      = <text>

`(nnchoke-request-list-newsgroups &optional SERVER)'
     The result data from this function should be the description of all
     groups available on the server.

          description-buffer = *description-line

`(nnchoke-request-newgroups DATE &optional SERVER)'
     The result data from this function should be all groups that were
     created after `date', which is in normal human-readable date
     format.  The data should be in the active buffer format.

`(nnchoke-request-create-group GROUP &optional SERVER)'
     This function should create an empty group with name GROUP.

     There should be no return data.

`(nnchoke-request-expire-articles ARTICLES &optional GROUP SERVER FORCE)'
     This function should run the expiry process on all articles in the
     ARTICLES range (which is currently a simple list of article
     numbers.)  It is left up to the back end to decide how old articles
     should be before they are removed by this function.  If FORCE is
     non-`nil', all ARTICLES should be deleted, no matter how new they
     are.

     This function should return a list of articles that it did not/was
     not able to delete.

     There should be no result data returned.

`(nnchoke-request-move-article ARTICLE GROUP SERVER ACCEPT-FORM'
     &optional LAST)

     This function should move ARTICLE (which is a number) from GROUP
     by calling ACCEPT-FORM.

     This function should ready the article in question for moving by
     removing any header lines it has added to the article, and
     generally should "tidy up" the article.  Then it should `eval'
     ACCEPT-FORM in the buffer where the "tidy" article is.  This will
     do the actual copying.  If this `eval' returns a non-`nil' value,
     the article should be removed.

     If LAST is `nil', that means that there is a high likelihood that
     there will be more requests issued shortly, so that allows some
     optimizations.

     The function should return a cons where the `car' is the group
     name and the `cdr' is the article number that the article was
     entered as.

     There should be no data returned.

`(nnchoke-request-accept-article GROUP &optional SERVER LAST)'
     This function takes the current buffer and inserts it into GROUP.
     If LAST in `nil', that means that there will be more calls to this
     function in short order.

     The function should return a cons where the `car' is the group
     name and the `cdr' is the article number that the article was
     entered as.

     There should be no data returned.

`(nnchoke-request-replace-article ARTICLE GROUP BUFFER)'
     This function should remove ARTICLE (which is a number) from GROUP
     and insert BUFFER there instead.

     There should be no data returned.

`(nnchoke-request-delete-group GROUP FORCE &optional SERVER)'
     This function should delete GROUP.  If FORCE, it should really
     delete all the articles in the group, and then delete the group
     itself.  (If there is such a thing as "the group itself".)

     There should be no data returned.

`(nnchoke-request-rename-group GROUP NEW-NAME &optional SERVER)'
     This function should rename GROUP into NEW-NAME.  All articles in
     GROUP should move to NEW-NAME.

     There should be no data returned.


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