Eric Abrahamsen wrote:

> James Thomas via "Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of
> text editors" <bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org> writes:
>
>> Eric Abrahamsen wrote:
>>
>>> Stefan Kangas <stefankangas@gmail.com> writes:
>>>
>>>> James Thomas via "Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of
>>>> text editors" <bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org> writes:
>>>>
>>>>> Reproduction steps for bug:
>>>>>
>>>>> - emacs -Q
>>>>> - (setq gnus-secondary-select-methods
>>>>>     '((nnatom "github.com/vedang/pdf-tools/commits.atom")))
>>>>>   (setq gnus-select-method '(nnnil ""))
>>>>> - M-x gnus
>>>>> - Open a message in the new group and press *
>>>>> - Add the cache virtual server (info "(gnus) Creating a Virtual Server")
>>>>> - ^ (server buffer) and: g on the cache
>>>>> - RET to open (fails)
>>>>>
>>>>> This is a possible fix that I've tested only on my (limited) setup, for
>>>>> now:
>>>>
>>>> Eric, what do you think of the below patch?
>>>
>>> Thanks for the bump...
>>>
>>> James, wasn't this what bug#69517 was supposed to be fixing?
>>
>> You're right, but that was specifically the 'cache'. In regenerate, all
>> it sees is that the backend is nnml and there's nothing else special
>> about the server.
>
> Okay, thanks.
>
>>> I'm still feeling like we're patching pinhole leaks in a fundamentally
>>> broken system.
>>
>> Sorry if my patch made you think so, but I don't feel that way 🙂. This
>> feature is just tangential and things like slashes in group names are
>> bound to complicate things.
>
> I wasn't complaining about your code :) Just generally grumbling that
> this is so complex.
>
>> But let me see if I can whip up an alternative patch that does things in
>> a simpler way (I did say: 'possible' patch). One thing to decide is
>> whether '%'s are uncommon enough in group names to warrant special
>> treatment in a backend as fundamental as nnml.

I've gone ahead and assumed the above; so now the patch is way simpler.
(Btw I meant to say 'nnmail' above, not 'nnml'). It shouldn't be a
problem: think I remember only Gmail using a % at some point - and a
simple renaming fixes that - perhaps there should be a NEWS entry.