Could you tell me where you found this information? I spent a few hours looking for this stuff on the web and came up empty-handed. I'd like to read that entire section of the GNU docs.
Bryan On 17-Oct-99 David Coe wrote: > Bryan Scaringe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > >> I'd like to create a new mailbox folder. My MUA, XFmail, >> supports both MH and MBOX style mailboxes. Which is >> better? Or rather, what are the pros and cons of each? >> I would like to start using Mohogany, once its a little >> more stable. Will my choice of mailbox type make any >> difference to that transition? > > Here's what the gnus doc has to say about those two; I > don't know XFmail, but I assume most of this applies: > > ------ > `nnmbox' > UNIX systems have historically had a single, very common, and well- > defined format. All messages arrive in a single "spool file", and > they are delineated by a line whose regular expression matches > `^From_'. (My notational use of `_' is to indicate a space, to > make it clear in this instance that this is not the RFC-specified > `From:' header.) Because Emacs and therefore Gnus emanate > historically from the Unix environment, it is simplest if one does > not mess a great deal with the original mailbox format, so if one > chooses this backend, Gnus' primary activity in getting mail from > the real spool area to Gnus' preferred directory is simply to copy > it, with no (appreciable) format change in the process. It is the > "dumbest" way to move mail into availability in the Gnus > environment. This makes it fast to move into place, but slow to > parse, when Gnus has to look at what's where. > > `nnmh' > The Rand MH mail-reading system has been around UNIX systems for a > very long time; it operates by splitting one's spool file of > messages into individual files, but with little or no indexing > support - `nnmh' is considered to be semantically equivalent to > "`nnml' without active file or overviews". This is arguably the > worst choice, because one gets the slowness of individual file > creation married to the slowness of access parsing when learning > what's new in one's groups. > ------ > > So if those are the only two choices, I guess mbox is likely to > be better if you don't need MH for somehting else. > > HTH > > > -- > Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < > /dev/null