Re: Inconsistent output from "notmuch search --output=<foo>"

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+From: Carl Worth <cworth@cworth.org>\r
+To: Sebastian Spaeth <Sebastian@SSpaeth.de>, notmuch@notmuchmail.org\r
+Subject: Re: Inconsistent output from "notmuch search --output=<foo>"\r
+In-Reply-To: <87fwurjeuh.fsf@SSpaeth.de>\r
+References: <871v6b79s0.fsf@yoom.home.cworth.org> <87fwurjeuh.fsf@SSpaeth.de>\r
+User-Agent: Notmuch/0.5 (http://notmuchmail.org) Emacs/23.2.1\r
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+Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2010 11:40:46 -0800\r
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+On Wed, 24 Nov 2010 09:38:46 +0100, Sebastian Spaeth <Sebastian@SSpaeth.de>=\r
+ wrote:\r
+> On Tue, 23 Nov 2010 18:09:03 -0800, Carl Worth wrote:\r
+> > The inconsistency is the presence of the "thread:" and "id:" prefixes in\r
+> > the first two cases, (note that there isn't any "tag:" prefix in the\r
+> > last case). I can't find any good justification for these.\r
+>=20\r
+> I use the output of notmuch search --format=3Dthreads to feed to another\r
+> notmuch tag operation, and if the thread: prefix vanishes, I'll have to f=\r
+ind other\r
+> ways to do that. :)\r
+\r
+Right. The inconsistency is that we don't have output such as:\r
+\r
+       tag:attachment\r
+       tag:unread\r
+        ...\r
+\r
+From=20notmuch search --output=3Dtags. While that output would be useful if\r
+you were using the tags to construct a search string, it gets in the way\r
+if you are doing something else with the tag names.\r
+\r
+And I can't come up with a strong, objective distinction for the threads\r
+and messages output differing here. (Thread and message IDs are "mostly"\r
+used for searching? How could we define that?)\r
+\r
+It is easy to say that a command like "search --output=3D" is designed\r
+primarily for automated use in scripts, and usage like that does benefit\r
+From=20consistency. This is in contrast to the various "stash" commands in\r
+the emacs interface which are designed primarily for interactive use,\r
+and there, convenience is more important than consistency.\r
+\r
+So my inclination is to remove the prefixes and then recommend that you\r
+do:\r
+\r
+       notmuch search --output=3Dthreads | sed -e 's/^/thread:'\r
+\r
+in your script.\r
+\r
+=2DCarl\r
+\r
+=2D-=20\r
+carl.d.worth@intel.com\r
+\r
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