From: Tomi Ollila Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2014 10:47:13 +0000 (+0200) Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/5] lib: make folder: prefix literal X-Git-Url: http://git.tremily.us/?a=commitdiff_plain;h=40f2a48838856bbf0483651fa5043fdf54d87b91;p=notmuch-archives.git Re: [PATCH 0/5] lib: make folder: prefix literal --- diff --git a/91/d303968637d65caeb1953e1ff94a8bb0d113d8 b/91/d303968637d65caeb1953e1ff94a8bb0d113d8 new file mode 100644 index 000000000..8c37a8a00 --- /dev/null +++ b/91/d303968637d65caeb1953e1ff94a8bb0d113d8 @@ -0,0 +1,161 @@ +Return-Path: +X-Original-To: notmuch@notmuchmail.org +Delivered-To: notmuch@notmuchmail.org +Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) + by olra.theworths.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0D483431FBC + for ; Sat, 25 Jan 2014 02:47:30 -0800 (PST) +X-Virus-Scanned: Debian amavisd-new at olra.theworths.org +X-Spam-Flag: NO +X-Spam-Score: 0 +X-Spam-Level: +X-Spam-Status: No, score=0 tagged_above=-999 required=5 tests=[none] + autolearn=disabled +Received: from olra.theworths.org ([127.0.0.1]) + by localhost (olra.theworths.org [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) + with ESMTP id D7qub4AxKNYO for ; + Sat, 25 Jan 2014 02:47:21 -0800 (PST) +Received: from guru.guru-group.fi (guru.guru-group.fi [46.183.73.34]) + by olra.theworths.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8BF68431FB6 + for ; Sat, 25 Jan 2014 02:47:21 -0800 (PST) +Received: from guru.guru-group.fi (localhost [IPv6:::1]) + by guru.guru-group.fi (Postfix) with ESMTP id 875031000B3; + Sat, 25 Jan 2014 12:47:13 +0200 (EET) +From: Tomi Ollila +To: Jani Nikula , Austin Clements , + notmuch@notmuchmail.org +Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/5] lib: make folder: prefix literal +In-Reply-To: <87r47wfltb.fsf@nikula.org> +References: + <87y525m649.fsf@awakening.csail.mit.edu> + <87r47wfltb.fsf@nikula.org> +User-Agent: Notmuch/0.17+41~g8e7fabf (http://notmuchmail.org) Emacs/24.3.1 + (x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu) +X-Face: HhBM'cA~ +MIME-Version: 1.0 +Content-Type: text/plain +X-BeenThere: notmuch@notmuchmail.org +X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.13 +Precedence: list +List-Id: "Use and development of the notmuch mail system." + +List-Unsubscribe: , + +List-Archive: +List-Post: +List-Help: +List-Subscribe: , + +X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2014 10:47:30 -0000 + +On Sat, Jan 25 2014, Jani Nikula wrote: + +> On Fri, 24 Jan 2014, Austin Clements wrote: +>> On Thu, 09 Jan 2014, Jani Nikula wrote: +>>> Hi all, this series makes the folder: search prefix literal, or switches +>>> it from a probabilistic prefix to a boolean prefix. With this, you have +>>> to give the path from the maildir root to the folder you want in full, +>>> including the maildir cur/new component, if any. Examples: +>> +>> I strongly disagree with requiring the cur/new component. The cur/new +>> directory is an internal implementation detail of Maildir (and a rather +>> broken one at that) and no more a part of the "folder" of a piece of +>> mail than its final file name component. It's also the less obvious +>> user interface; if we require the cur/new component, we *will* get +>> people asking why their folder searches aren't working, but if we strip +>> the cur/new component, nobody will be surprised. +>> +>> I think the question is not whether we should strip cur/new, but when. +>> We've already defined a "_filename_is_in_maildir" test in +>> lib/message.cc, which we depend on for flag sync. It's simple, but I +>> think this would be the right thing to use for consistency. +> +> I'd like to discuss some of the reasons I chose to include the cur/new +> components. Admittedly, none of them are very strong on their own, but +> all of them together tilted my opinion towards requiring them. +> +> The way I see it, notmuch supports maildir, but does not require it. In +> many ways the messages are just files somewhere in the directory +> hierarchy. There are only a few cases where it matters that there are +> cur/new/tmp directories within a directory. +> +> If you strip cur and new, it becomes impossible to distinguish between +> files in foo, foo/cur, and foo/new - and one of the reasons for changing +> folder: in the first place is to be able to better distinguish between +> folders. +> +> Apparently mutt presents the difference between messages in new and cur +> to its users (so I've been told; I've never really used mutt), and our +> integration with mutt lacks that distinction. We could fix that by +> requiring the cur/new components in folder: searches. +> +> Speaking of consistency, compare _filename_is_in_maildir() with +> _entries_resemble_maildir() in notmuch-new.c. What should the indexed +> folder: prefix be if there is not all of cur, new, and tmp? We will +> actually index files in tmp if cur or new is not present! What if the +> missing sibling directories are added (or existing ones removed) later? +> Where's the consistency compared to new.ignore config, which also +> matches the cur/new components if so desired? Or consistency with +> notmuch search --output=files? +> +> My conclusion was that requiring *all* filesystem folder components +> as-is is consistent, most versatile, agnostic to Maildir or Maildir++ +> implementation details wrt directory naming or hierarchy, without +> difficult corner cases, simplest to implement, and unsurprising (once +> you understand the cur/new distinction). +> +> For *me* this is the more obvious user interface. And hey, I'm a user +> too. +> +> Perhaps we need to have two prefixes, one of which is the literal +> filesystem folder and another which hides the implementation details, +> like I mentioned in my mail to Peter [1]. But consider this: my proposed +> implementation does cover *all* use cases. + +I challenge that with my use case: my mails are arranged as follows: + +head of contents of notmuch archive prior to my involvement: + +$ find notmuch | head -5 +notmuch +notmuch/6b +notmuch/6b/de820df0697ab2d235fbc8e32510d7 +notmuch/6b/917afddb116a03c45371282be58388 +notmuch/6b/10eb0bc1406f6767161f5883f328f7 + +head of contents of received mail + +$ find notmuch | head -5 +received +received/rawmail2 +received/6b +received/6b/86a8937aac57721ad87f0e0e5fe6c3 +received/6b/3278d6c4c1fe7604f1404bc09acff7 + +Interestingly find started with subdirectory '6b' in both cases... +-- anyway I have 0xff + 1 subdirectories in each mail directory and +$ md5sum received/6b/86a8937aac57721ad87f0e0e5fe6c3 outputs +6b86a8937aac57721ad87f0e0e5fe6c3 received/6b/86a8937aac57721ad87f0e0e5fe6c3 + +For me the current folder: works as I don't have collisions. + +For me a folder: search which would just work as a prefix i.e. match +anything under given directory hierarchy would work best. + +At the end it might be that I have to hack the search for my purposes; +more important/interesting thing is whether I need to use incompatible +database format :O + + +Tomi + + +> +> BR, +> Jani. +> +> +> [1] id:8761ppurfz.fsf@nikula.org