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From: Urs =?UTF-8?Q?Jan=C3=9Fen?= <urs@buil.tin.org>
Newsgroups: news.software.nntp
Subject: Re: Improving trn: LISTGROUP with no arguments vs. ...?
Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2024 00:53:27 -0000 (UTC)
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Richard wrote:
> What's the best alternative to LISTGROUP with no args?

you could implement something like tins -G option:

|   -G article-limit
|           Limit  the  number  of  articles/group  to retrieve from the
|           server.  If article-limit is > 0 not more than the last  ar‐
|           ticle-limit  articles/group  are fetched from the server. If
|           article-limit is < 0 tin will start fetching  articles  from
|           your first unread minus absolute value of article-limit. De‐
|           fault is 0, which means no limit.

see art.c:setup_hard_base() ~240

(or just the part with the negative limit).

or just rely on the overview data and article numbers (if present).

both suggestion do have drawbacks (which partially undermine the actual
purpose of listgroup - get zthe numbers of all available articles).

with limits you do not see all articles in the group (which i.e. may
affect threading) and relying on overview data is not fail-safe as that
data may not be up to date (regadring expired or cancelled articles).