Re: [PATCH 6/6] WIP: support XDG database directory

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+From: David Bremner <david@tethera.net>\r
+To: Tomi Ollila <tomi.ollila@iki.fi>, notmuch@notmuchmail.org\r
+Subject: Re: [PATCH 6/6] WIP: support XDG database directory\r
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+Tomi Ollila <tomi.ollila@iki.fi> writes:\r
+\r
+> This is good opening for (eventually "fixing" e.g. library interface...);\r
+> in its current state I can come up 2 (easily solvable) problems\r
+>\r
+> 1) the xapian database holding email indexes can grow to be quite large;\r
+> user may have large space for emails (somewhere else than HOME) but small\r
+> HOME. This can be "fixed" by keeping the database still in the same hierarchy\r
+> as email files. Making user to point XDG_DATA_HOME elsewhere is (I) global\r
+> and (II) fragile for an user to do.\r
+\r
+Sure, once we find the database, the mail tree can be anywhere,\r
+including the same place. The question is how do non-CLI clients find\r
+the database. I agree that setting XDG_DATA_HOME just for notmuch sounds\r
+ick. As you mention below we can fairly easily have our own environment\r
+variable (NOTMUCH_DATABASE ?) that is checked in preference to XDG_DATA_HOME.\r
+\r
+> 2) User may have multiple separate email configurations under one user\r
+> account; This is easy to fix with environment variable; if exists,\r
+> overrides XDG_DATA_HOME or $HOME/.local/share -- actually if this holds\r
+> "only" configurations, the XDG_CONFIG_HOME is more appropriate\r
+> (again, in simple case users should not be bothered to set any environment\r
+> variables themselves, but should be able to survive with large databases).\r
+\r
+For me, having an environment variable makes sense in terms of getting\r
+various tools (scripts etc...) to cooperate. For multiple databases,\r
+this seems less natural but of course the tools can still take some\r
+parameter specifying a database. Also, I don't know how common it is for\r
+people to have multiple databases.\r
+\r
+d\r