[PATCH 2/2] [RFC] possible solution for "Race condition for '*' command"

[Pieter Praet]

On Fri, 1 Jul 2011 12:37:11 -0400, Austin Clements <amdragon at mit.edu> wrote:
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> On Jul 1, 2011 10:55 AM, "Austin Clements" <amdragon at mit.edu> wrote:
> >
> > On Thu, Jun 30, 2011 at 3:38 PM, Pieter Praet <pieter at praet.org> wrote:
> > > Ok, even though my very first reply [1] may have created the impression
> > > that I understood the issue, I clearly didn't...
> > >
> > > The test [2] needs a more applicable commit message, and the subsequent
> > > patch [3] points more or less in the right direction, but the Message-Id
> > > list should be local to the *search buffer* rather than to the
> > > `notmuch-search-operate-all' function.
> > >
> > > `notmuch-search' could:
> > >  - run "notmuch-command search" with the "--output=messages" option
> > >    instead of a plain search,
> > >  - maintain a buffer-local var with a list of returned Message-Id's,
> > >  - ...and populate the buffer based on that list.
> > >
> > > As such we'd have -for each individual search buffer- a canonical list
> > > of Message-Id's (i.e. messages which actually *match* the query AND are
> > > currently visible in the search buffer), to be used by
> > > `notmuch-search-operate-all' et al.
> > >
> > >
> > > Peace
> > >
> > > --
> > > Pieter
> > >
> > > [1] id:"87fwmuxxgd.fsf at praet.org"
> > > [2] id:"1309450108-2793-2-git-send-email-pieter at praet.org"
> > > [3] id:"1309450108-2793-1-git-send-email-pieter at praet.org"
> >
> > Ideally, this wouldn't be per-buffer, but per *line*.  This race
> > equally affects adding and removing tags from individual results,
> > since that's done using a thread: query, whose results could have
> > changed since the original search.
> >
> > This almost certainly requires support from the notmuch core.  The
> > good news is that the library already provides this information, so
> > there will be virtually no performance hit for outputting it.
> 
> Actually, with a smidgeon of library support, you could even use document
> IDs for this, rather than message IDs, which would make the tagging
> operations (even '*') no more expensive than they are now.  (Of course, it
> would be good to know just how much overhead going through message IDs
> actually introduces.)
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That would be awesome!

Though I'd rather leave the plumbing to someone sufficiently capable,
so, if leaving libnotmuch hacking out of the equation, how would one go
about doing this?

I (ignorantly) assume we'd get `notmuch-search-process-filter'
to append each line with an invisible field containing a list
of matching Message-Id's, presumably obtained via
`notmuch_thread_get_matched_messages' (@ lib/thread.cc) ?


Peace

-- 
Pieter