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From: Jani Nikula <jani@nikula.org>
To: Mark Walters <markwalters1009@gmail.com>,
	Nathan Clapham <nathan@claphams.info>, notmuch@notmuchmail.org
Subject: Re: Searching with prefix :folder and --output=files
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References: <20130611213424.GA5028@Nathans-MacBook-Air.local>
	<87k3lz90k3.fsf@qmul.ac.uk>
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Date: Wed, 12 Jun 2013 14:32:28 +0300
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On Wed, 12 Jun 2013, Mark Walters <markwalters1009@gmail.com> wrote:
> First notmuch finds all the *messages* that match your query (ie
> which have an associated filename matching the folder: part of your
> query) and then it returns all filenames for these messages.

I recently sent patches to clarify the man pages a bit while adding a
new feature to the cli:

http://mid.gmane.org/1370881897-3386-1-git-send-email-jani@nikula.org
http://mid.gmane.org/1370881714-3303-1-git-send-email-jani@nikula.org

> I think that notmuch views a message (as determined by a message-id) as
> a single object in its database (it assumes that all copies are
> identical) so fixing this would not be easy.

Assuming any fixing is needed, that is. One would assume any notmuch
search --output=files *without* the folder: prefix would return all
files for all matching messages. I think it would be rather confusing if
the folder: prefix modified that.

Like Mark said, the most important thing to understand is that all
notmuch searches match messages. The --output option just modifies how
those matching messages are presented; it does not affect what is
searched for at all.

BR,
Jani.