Re: [PATCH] Avoid empty thread names if possible.

[Mark Walters <markwalters1009@gmail.com>]

Hi

On Wed, 29 Oct 2014, Jesse Rosenthal <jrosenthal@jhu.edu> wrote:
> [I'm not sure why the below reply did not go to the list. Later replies
> did, so I assume there must have been so problem in the sending. Mark,
> apologies if you get this twice.]
>
> Hi,
>
> Thanks for taking a look at this.
>
> Mark Walters <markwalters1009@gmail.com> writes:
>> I approve of the change in the output but I am unsure about the
>> implementation. It would be nice to have a clear rule about which
>> subject is taken. Eg: 
>>
>>         if sort is oldest first then it is the subject of the oldest
>>         matching message with a non-empty subject. Similarly if sort
>>         is newest first.
>
> The rule is actually in a four-year-old commit message (4971b85c4), in
> almost exactly the same words you used:
>
>     ...name threads based on (a) matches for the query, and (b) the
>     search order. If the search order is oldest-first (as in the default
>     inbox) it chooses the oldest matching message as the subject. If the
>     search order is newest-first it chooses the newest one.
>
>     Reply prefixes ("Re: ", "Aw: ", "Sv: ", "Vs: ") are ignored
>     (case-insensitively) so a Re: won't change the subject.
>
> So we would, essentially, just need to add "non-empty" to this
> phrasing. Where would be the right place to put it? Commit message?
> NEWS? `search` man page?

First I just wanted to check that I knew exactly what behaviour was
intended. Having the new rule in the commit message might well be
sufficient.

>> Also, it would be nice if the implementation did not rely on what order
>> we call _thread_add_matched_message on the matching messages in the
>> thread. I think in some ways we already rely on the order (for the order
>> of the author list), but if you want to rely on the order here I think
>> it at least deserves a comment.
>
> That would require a rethinking, I think, of naming -- since it's
> traditionally worked in terms of renaming. When a better option comes,
> we throw out the old one. So order is pretty essential. (Not saying
> that's the best way, just pointing out that it's the way it's been done
> since Carl's initial alpha release.)

I think that the current code does not depend on the order the messages
are given to _thread_add_matched_message: regardless of the order the
thread will get the subject of the oldest matching message (in
sort=oldest first)

In contrast your code will give different subjects depending in the
order the messages are fed to _thread_add_matched_message.

>> So looking at the above I think the oldest first gives the subject in
>> my suggestion above (since the messages are supplied in oldest first
>> order). But newest first may not: indeed if the subject starts out as
>> something and becomes empty then this will set the subject empty and
>> then leave it
>
>> (Note b_thread_set_subject_from_message calls notmuch_message_get_header
>> which returns an empty string "" if the subject line is empty or not
>> present).
>
> Hmmm... I was looking at the following line in
> _thread_set_subject_from_message:
>
>     subject = notmuch_message_get_header (message, "subject");
>     if (! subject)
> 	return;

but subject="" is not null; subject is only null if
notmuch_message_get_header throws an error. See the documentation for
notmuch_message_get_header.

Best wishes

Mark



>
> So, I don't think we ever actually change a content-ful string subject
> to an empty one, as you describe above? If there's a non-empty string
> there, and we get an empty subject, we leave the non-empty string in
> place, right?
>
> Best,
> Jesse