folder and path completely broken in HEAD?

[Jani Nikula]

Hi Carl -

On Tue, 06 May 2014, Carl Worth <cworth at cworth.org> wrote:
> dm-list-email-notmuch at scs.stanford.edu writes:
>> However, currently it seems strange that there are *two* different
>> search terms (folder and path), and that neither one lets you search for
>> a portion of your folder name.
>
> For what it's worth, I totally agree. I'm guilty as far as sitting out
> of the detailed design discussions, (I don't use any sort of
> folder-based searching, so I don't care too much). I was aware of the
> problems of the original "folder:" code I wrote, and I was happy to hear
> that people were addressing those problems.
>
> But it's terribly strange to me that notmuch now has two different
> search terms that overlap so much in functionality. I know that I will
> never trust myself to be able to distinguish/describe the folder:
> vs. path: semantics without consulting the documentation. And that's
> discouraging.

The discussions about this were lengthy and tedious, and I was glad we
eventually reached some consensus about what we wanted. It's always
disappointing to find out one hasn't found the solution to satisfy
everyone, but in the end I think I'm happier we were able to reach a
decision, do something about the real issues people were facing with
folder: and move on, rather than just grind to a halt. I think we were
pretty close to everyone just dropping the ball and letting the folder:
prefix be, warts and all.

The idea of path: is that it's the exact filesystem directory, relative
from the maildir root, with an rsync like ** syntax for recursive
matching. Turns out people want folder: to hide maildir implementation
details like cur and new. These are not compatible, or you need to add a
syntax that's not easy or discoverable.

path: is now pretty much complete, and allows one to do robust scripting
that won't break in surprising ways. folder: is something we can still
add new functionality into, for example fancier interpretations of
maildir++, or anchoring if we ever get the custom query parser.

> I think the original "folder:" shortcomings could have been addressed
> without adding two terms, and also without losing some functionality,
> (as shown in David's use case).
>
> I would have liked to have seen some explicit syntax for anchoring the
> beginning and end of the directory name, (which could have then been
> re-used for anchoring subject: or even some future header: prefix).

As I understood it, that would have required writing a custom query
parser, a significant effort. At least nobody came up with a scheme to
do the anchoring without the parser while addressing the other issues
with the old folder: prefix.

> I've always thought that the "cur" and "new" directories were somewhere
> on the spectrum between pointless and annoying. The idea with the
> original "folder:" indexing was to implicitly ignore these, (when both
> existed).
>
> It seems that the new "folder:" continues this idea, while the new
> "path:" does not.

Correct.

> Meanwhile, the new "folder:" anchors the search to the beginning of
> the directory, while "path:" does not.

Incorrect (or I don't understand you).

> And finally, "path:" adds a magic syntax to do hierarchical matching
> while "folder:" does not.

Correct.

> That's an odd hodgepodge of non-orthogonal distinction in
> functionality.

I'm sorry to hear you think that way. One is verbatim filesystem path,
the other hides mail store folder implementation details as a
convenience.


BR,
Jani.