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#### 6.6.1 Directory Groups

If you have a directory that has lots of articles in separate files in it, you might treat it as a newsgroup. The files have to have numerical names, of course.

This might be an opportune moment to mention `ange-ftp` (and its successor `efs`), that most wonderful of all wonderful Emacs packages. When I wrote `nndir`, I didn’t think much about it—a back end to read directories. Big deal.

`ange-ftp` changes that picture dramatically. For instance, if you enter the `ange-ftp` file name `/ftp.hpc.uh.edu:/pub/emacs/ding-list/` as the directory name, `ange-ftp` or `efs` will actually allow you to read this directory over at ‘`sina`’ as a newsgroup. Distributed news ahoy!

`nndir` will use NOV files if they are present.

`nndir` is a “read-only” back end—you can’t delete or expire articles with this method. You can use `nnmh` or `nnml` for whatever you use `nndir` for, so you could switch to any of those methods if you feel the need to have a non-read-only `nndir`.