Subject: Re: bug#66188: 29.1; Include Atom feed reader

From: James Thomas <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 09 Feb 2024 09:24:12 +0530

Daniel Semyonov wrote:

>>>>>> James Thomas writes:
>
>     > Another thing: The article numbers seem to be assigned in the
>     > reverse order of datetime on each fetch: ie. the later posts seem
>     > to have a smaller number. Is this intentional?
>
> The articles are numbered based on the order they appear in the feed.

Of course, but my point was different. Let me try and explain it better
with an example:

Let's say a fetch in the early morning returns these:

6am : Post 1: article number 3
7am : Post 2: article number 2
8am : Post 3: article number 1

(note that the order is reverse)

And a second fetch later on returns these:

9am : Post 4: article number 6
10am: Post 5: article number 5
11am: Post 6: article number 4

When sorting them later on (by number), the order ends up being:

8am : Post 3: article number 1
7am : Post 2: article number 2
6am : Post 1: article number 3
10am: Post 5: article number 5
11am: Post 6: article number 4
9am : Post 4: article number 6

...which is neither descending nor ascending (by time). This could be
fixed if the number generation order (on each fetch) were simply
reversed.

(info "(gnus) Back End Interface") uses the words 'later' and 'order of
arrival'.

WDYT?

> This could be changed, however there is no requirement to place feed
> items in a chronological order in Atom (or other feed formats AFAIK), so
> this would "fix" this for some feeds while "breaking" it for others.
> I think it would be better to just explicitly sort by date in this case.

Regards,
James