Re: gnus-thread-sort-functions

[Sébastien Vauban]

Hi Tassilo,

Tassilo Horn wrote:
> Sébastien Vauban writes:
>>    "False" threads seem not to be correctly displayed based on the
>>    above rule.  By false threads, I mean articles bound together based on
>>    the subject, not on the reference.
>>
>>    Such threads do not appear to be correctly sorted based on the most
>>    recent date, but only on the root date. Do you have a similar
>>    effect?
>
> I have to admit that I never compared dates.  I even don't show them in
> summary buffers...

I do, as you can see in the example below.

After having used the following settings for a while...

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
;; don't grab old headers to build threads
(setq gnus-fetch-old-headers nil)  ; nil to speed up (otherwise, it can
                                   ; seriously impact performance)

;; only fill in the gaps that are needed to tie loose threads together
(setq gnus-build-sparse-threads 'some)
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---


... I can tell the sorting works quite well...

... except:

A. for "false threads" (as previously said, see above)

B. and that...
>> I've seen a few threads where the internal sorting was crazy, such as:
>>
>>      poster2          2007-07-24 06:44  4.1k     o (First answer)
>>      poster3          2007-07-24 19:42  0.0k     |-> (Second answer)
>>      poster4          2007-07-24 19:42  4.6k     ||-> (Third answer)
>>      poster5          2007-07-28 03:13  5.2k     |   |-> (Fourth answer)
>>      original-poster  2007-07-24 08:28  5.8k     |-> (Question)
>>
>>    I can't find back an example of this, but...
>
> Phew, dunno how this could happen.

Here is a real-life example (YES!!), just found when reading the Emacs
newsgroup (with some noticeable delay...umh..umh):

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
Q                    1970-01-01 01:00  0.0k     o Re: pretty-layout in html-mode
R   ken              2009-05-12 11:58  2.7k       |->
Q                    2009-05-12 11:59  0.0k       |->
R   Chris Withers    2009-05-12 11:59  2.5k         |->
R   Anselm Helbig    2009-05-12 12:02  2.1k         ||->
Q                    2009-05-12 13:03  0.0k         |->
R   tomas@tuxteam.d  2009-05-12 13:03  2.6k           |->
Q                    2009-05-12 12:57  0.0k           |->
Q                    2009-05-12 13:14  0.0k             |->
R   tomas@tuxteam.d  2009-05-12 13:14  2.7k             ||->
R   Chris Withers    2009-05-12 12:57  2.3k             |->
R   B. T. Raven      2009-05-12 16:58  2.3k               |->
R   Chris Withers    2009-05-12 11:28  1.8k                 |->
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

In fact, the original question (from Chris Withers) is the last line that of
this thread... Such a phenomenon rarely happens, but it does.

Some others answers are displayed before the questions...


> Maybe somehow by setting gnus-summary-thread-gathering-function to
> gnus-gather-threads-by-subject and posters with wrong dates? But that's only
> a blind guess...

Here is my value for `gnus-summary-thread-gathering-function':

    ,----
    | gnus-summary-thread-gathering-function is a variable defined in 
`gnus-sum.el'.
    | Its value is
    | gnus-gather-threads-by-subject
    |
    | Documentation:
    | *Function used for gathering loose threads.
    | There are two pre-defined functions: `gnus-gather-threads-by-subject',
    | which only takes Subjects into consideration; and
    | `gnus-gather-threads-by-references', which compared the References
    | headers of the articles to find matches.
    `----

I never played with it... It's the default value.

Do yo have the similar problem when you read the above thread from the Emacs
newsgroup?

Best regards!
  Seb

--
Sébastien Vauban