Re: New "notmuch address" command

[Lele Gaifax <lele@metapensiero.it>]

Michal Sojka <sojkam1@fel.cvut.cz> writes:

>> An (almost) equivalent of "notmuch-addrlookup foo" could be "notmuch
>> address to:foo* OR from:foo*", but it has at least one indesiderable
>> difference: it seems considering the "CC" field, but always emits the
>> "TO" content (i.e., assuming I have a message I sent to "john@doe.com"
>> and CCed to "foo@bar.com", "notmuch address to:foo" emits
>> "john@doe.com", not "foo@bar.com") so the candidates it generates are
>> way too much.
>>
>> I don't know it that's done on purpose (I clearly miss the use case if
>> so).
>
> Yes, this is expected behavior. Notmuch address is basically a wrapper
> around search command. The command does not interpret the query at all,
> because there might be no from:/to: term. The use case was to SIMPLIFY
> address completers.

Ok, even if I still miss the point of searching for an address and
obtaining (only, see below) something (apparently) unrelated.

>> I wonder if it would be reasonable adding a "--complete" flag to the
>> "address" command that selects a more specific behaviour, so that
>> "notmuch address --complete foo":
> ...
>> b) searches the given text only in the related headers (hiding the
>>    difference between "incoming" and "outgoing" messages, 
>
> This should be configurable, because --output=sender is much faster than
> --output=recipients. I think that ideal address completion should offer
> you the addresses you have already written to, i.e.
>
>     notmuch address --output=recipient from:my@address to:"prefix*"
>
> But this may be too slow on non-SSD disks. Some users may therefore prefer
>
>     notmuch address --output=sender to:my@address from:"prefix*"
>
> which would be faster, but also includes every spammer/robot/... who
> sends anything to you.

Yes, seems reasonable!

>> and not
>>    considering the body at all)
>
> What considers body now?

Well, "notmuch address foo" currently does that, and that sounds useful,
to obtain a list of recipients who talked about "foo".

>> c) avoids the "bug"/"feature" explained above
>
> Yes, if you know the substring you are looking for, implementing a
> filter would be trivial.

It's not just a matter of filtering, but rather *which* address is
emitted: trying it out, in the case above the "foo@bar.com" is not even
mentioned in the output, because it appears only as a CCed recipient.

thank you,
ciao, lele.
-- 
nickname: Lele Gaifax | Quando vivrò di quello che ho pensato ieri
real: Emanuele Gaifas | comincerò ad aver paura di chi mi copia.
lele@metapensiero.it  |                 -- Fortunato Depero, 1929.