library config API

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+From: David Bremner <david@tethera.net>\r
+To: notmuch@notmuchmail.org\r
+Subject: library config API\r
+Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2016 10:59:53 -0400\r
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+\r
+This is the third revision of this series, and I think the first two\r
+patches are ready for serious review.\r
+\r
+Some things to think about with respect to the CLI patches\r
+\r
+- Should we include a "version" line at the top of the dump? Currently this is unused, but that\r
+  depends on the format being auto detectable?\r
+\r
+- Should config info be included by default in the dump output?\r
+\r
+- Should we restore config info by default?\r
+\r
+- How about the usual bikeshedding about argument names? I'm loath to\r
+  spend time on docs until after this.\r
+\r
+I guess a global question is what do we need this API / feature for. I\r
+can think of three things so far\r
+\r
+- tag aliases [1]\r
+\r
+- making the location of the mail tree configurable (i.e. allowing\r
+  mailtree and database to live in different places).\r
+\r
+- Some things like excludes and maildir synchonization are natural to\r
+  have in common between all clients.\r
+\r
+A natural question is why not provide a library API to access\r
+.notmuch-config? Having a plain text representation of the\r
+configuration (without the extra step of dumping it) is obviously\r
+attractive, but\r
+\r
+- We would need to build some locking / synchronization to prevent\r
+  various clients and interactive text editors from stomping on each\r
+  other. This we have for free by using xapian metadata.\r
+\r
+- We'd also have to provide our own key/value datastructure.\r
+\r
+- At least for tag aliases, I think there is a second argument that\r
+  this information part of the users tagging state, and should be\r
+  backed up as part of the normal dump / restore process.\r
+\r
+[1]: id:87mvsd7cxr.fsf@zancas.localnet\r
+\r