To: Stewart Smith <stewart@flamingspork.com>
In-reply-to: <20100223061542.GR17878@flamingspork.com> 
References: <E1NjeZ1-0001qw-HZ@po8.org>
	<20100223061542.GR17878@flamingspork.com>
Comments: In-reply-to Stewart Smith <stewart@flamingspork.com>
	message dated "Tue, 23 Feb 2010 17:15:42 +1100."
Date: Tue, 23 Feb 2010 13:31:55 -0800
From: Bart Massey <bart@po8.org>
Message-Id: <E1Nk2MF-0007RY-IT@po8.org>
Cc: Notmuch Mail <notmuch@notmuchmail.org>
Subject: Re: [notmuch] [PATCH] Added mail directory filename pattern support.
Precedence: list

In message <20100223061542.GR17878@flamingspork.com> you wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 12:07:31PM -0800, Bart Massey wrote:
> > Typically, the filenames in a mail directory that actually
> > contain mail obey some specific format.  For example, in my
> > MH email directory, all mail filenames consist only of
> > digits.
> > 
> > This patch adds support for a config file variable
> > "filename_pattern" which maybe set to a regex used to filter
> > only valid mail filenames when scanning.  Effective use of
> > filename_pattern cuts down on the noise from notmuch, and
> > may speed it up in some cases.
> 
> What about the other way around?
> 
> e.g. if anybody has ever pointed Evolution at a Maildir, you get a
> bunch of Maildir-name.ev-summary and .ev-summary-meta and .ibex.index
> and whatever.
> 
> A default list of ignored patterns would be pretty easy to come up with. 

I'm not understanding your use case?  For the most common
cases, Maildir and MH, setting the appropriate
filename_pattern will ignore whatever garbage is lying
around the tree and just look at the mail messages.

Maybe my documentation is confusing?  By "filter only valid
mail filenames" I mean "accept only valid mail filenames", not
"filter out only valid mail filenames". :-)

Thanks much for any clarification you can provide.

    Bart Massey
    bart@cs.pdx.edu