From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by arlo.cworth.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9BCF36DE13EA for ; Mon, 20 Apr 2015 16:48:21 -0700 (PDT) X-Virus-Scanned: Debian amavisd-new at cworth.org X-Spam-Flag: NO X-Spam-Score: 0.347 X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.347 tagged_above=-999 required=5 tests=[AWL=0.347] autolearn=disabled Received: from arlo.cworth.org ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (arlo.cworth.org [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id PrefpE2MZOx7 for ; Mon, 20 Apr 2015 16:48:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mx.xen14.node3324.gplhost.com (gitolite.debian.net [87.98.215.224]) by arlo.cworth.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 173B66DE1003 for ; Mon, 20 Apr 2015 16:48:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: from remotemail by mx.xen14.node3324.gplhost.com with local (Exim 4.80) (envelope-from ) id 1YkLPU-0008TM-NW; Mon, 20 Apr 2015 23:47:28 +0000 Received: (nullmailer pid 30923 invoked by uid 1000); Mon, 20 Apr 2015 23:47:11 -0000 From: David Bremner To: matt@bubblegen.co.uk, notmuch@notmuchmail.org Subject: Re: quirks with subject searching In-Reply-To: <10f88378b37e653bba961be66183d2d5.squirrel@webmail.plus.net> References: <10f88378b37e653bba961be66183d2d5.squirrel@webmail.plus.net> User-Agent: Notmuch/0.19+96~g703c8f9 (http://notmuchmail.org) Emacs/24.4.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 08:47:11 +0900 Message-ID: <87383ufjls.fsf@maritornes.cs.unb.ca> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-BeenThere: notmuch@notmuchmail.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.18 Precedence: list List-Id: "Use and development of the notmuch mail system." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 23:48:21 -0000 Matthew Lear writes: > > item: foo > an item: foo > an item: XYfoo1234 > an item: XYfoo bar > > ... only the first two are found. > > Also: > * notmuch searching for subject:"item: f" gives zero results. notmuch (and xapian) are based on searching for words, not substrings. It only finds subwords through a process of stemming [1]. > > * notmuch searching for subject:"(*foo*)" results in the first two threads > being found and also a thread with the word footprint in the middle of the > subject being found (subject is "memory footprint without feature"). wildcards [2] are supported only at the end of words, so I suppose the first * is just ignored. > > Why doesn't notmuch search subject:foo find all four threads, and why > doesn't notmuch search subject:"item: f" find anything at all? Hopefully the above clears it up. This topic comes up fairly often; I'm not sure if there is something we could add to the (already rather long) notmuch-search-terms manpage that would help. [1] "Stemming" in notmuch-search-terms (7) [2] "Wildcards" in notmuch-search-terms (7)