[PATCH 1/4] doc: Clarify notmuch show --format=raw description

[Mark Walters]

On Fri, 18 Apr 2014, Austin Clements <amdragon at MIT.EDU> wrote:
> Quoth Mark Walters on Apr 18 at  8:23 pm:
>> 
>> On Fri, 18 Apr 2014, Austin Clements <amdragon at MIT.EDU> wrote:
>> > In addition to being generally more precise, this is explicit that
>> > there is no charset conversion.
>> > ---
>> >  doc/man1/notmuch-show.rst | 36 ++++++++++++++++++++----------------
>> >  1 file changed, 20 insertions(+), 16 deletions(-)
>> >
>> > diff --git a/doc/man1/notmuch-show.rst b/doc/man1/notmuch-show.rst
>> > index bad868b..2c0f64c 100644
>> > --- a/doc/man1/notmuch-show.rst
>> > +++ b/doc/man1/notmuch-show.rst
>> > @@ -76,22 +76,26 @@ Supported options for **show** include
>> >  
>> >  	    http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jonathan.deboynepollard/FGA/mail-mbox-formats.html
>> >  
>> > -        **raw** (default for a single part, see --part)
>> > -            For a message or an attached message part, the original, raw
>> > -            content of the email message is output. Consumers of this
>> > -            format should expect to implement MIME decoding and similar
>> > -            functions.
>> > -
>> > -            For a single part (--part) the raw part content is output
>> > -            after performing any necessary MIME decoding. Note that
>> > -            messages with a simple body still have two parts: part 0 is
>> > -            the whole message and part 1 is the body.
>> > -
>> > -            For a multipart part, the part headers and body (including
>> > -            all child parts) is output.
>> > -
>> > -            The raw format must only be used with search terms matching
>> > -            single message.
>> > +        **raw** (default if --part is given)
>> > +            Write the raw bytes of the given MIME part of a message to
>> > +            standard out. For this format, it is an error to specify a
>> > +            query that matches more than one message.
>> > +
>> > +            If the specified part is a leaf part, this outputs the
>> > +            body of the part after performing content transfer
>> > +            decoding (but no charset conversion). This is suitable for
>> > +            saving attachments, for example.
>> > +
>> > +            For a multipart or message part, the output includes the
>> > +            part headers as well as the body (including all child
>> > +            parts). No decoding is performed because multipart and
>> > +            message parts cannot have non-trivial content transfer
>> > +            encoding. Consumers of this may need to implement MIME
>> > +            decoding and similar functions.
>> > +
>> > +            Note that even a message with a simple body has two parts:
>> > +            part 0 is the whole message and part 1 is the body of the
>> > +            message.
>> 
>> Generally this looks good. I wonder whether the paragraph above could be
>> expanded slightly: my (quite possibly flawed) understanding is that
>> simple messages don't need to be MIME encoded (at least some messages
>> don't contain any mention of MIME). If this is correct then I think it
>> would be worth clarifying that this paragraph applies even to non-MIME
>> encoded messages.
>
> It's true that even "non-MIME" messages have two MIME parts.  Are you
> thinking something like
>
> Note that even a message with no MIME structure or a single body part
> still has two MIME parts: part 0 is the whole message (headers and
> body) and part 1 is just the body.
>

That sounds great.

> ?
>
> I wonder if this would be better in the documentation for --part.

I think that would make sense.

Best wishes

Mark