Return-Path: <cworth@cworth.org>
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 00B50431FC0;
	Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:51:36 -0800 (PST)
X-Virus-Scanned: Debian amavisd-new at olra.theworths.org
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 lLfhSiItCObh; Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:51:35 -0800 (PST)
Received: from cworth.org (localhost [127.0.0.1])
	by olra.theworths.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 04249431FBC;
	Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:51:34 -0800 (PST)
From: Carl Worth <cworth@cworth.org>
To: Jeffrey Ollie <jeff@ocjtech.us>, Not Much Mail
	<notmuch@notmuchmail.org>
In-Reply-To: <935ead450911181150i4bda379bhcebc3ef52844a0a@mail.gmail.com>
References: <87k4xnrhfp.fsf@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
	<yun3a4b3b50.fsf@aiko.keithp.com>
	<935ead450911181150i4bda379bhcebc3ef52844a0a@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:51:20 +0100
Message-ID: <87639775on.fsf@yoom.home.cworth.org>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Subject: Re: [notmuch] [PATCH] notmuch: Add tag archive when archiving the
 mails
X-BeenThere: notmuch@notmuchmail.org
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.12
Precedence: list
List-Id: "Use and development of the notmuch mail system."
	<notmuch.notmuchmail.org>
List-Unsubscribe: <http://notmuchmail.org/mailman/options/notmuch>,
	<mailto:notmuch-request@notmuchmail.org?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <http://notmuchmail.org/pipermail/notmuch>
List-Post: <mailto:notmuch@notmuchmail.org>
List-Help: <mailto:notmuch-request@notmuchmail.org?subject=help>
List-Subscribe: <http://notmuchmail.org/mailman/listinfo/notmuch>,
	<mailto:notmuch-request@notmuchmail.org?subject=subscribe>
X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 18 Nov 2009 23:51:36 -0000

On Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:50:58 -0600, Jeffrey Ollie <jeff@ocjtech.us> wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 1:07 PM, Keith Packard <keithp@keithp.com> wrote:
> > I think you can just use 'not tag:inbox' as 'archived' really just means
> > 'doesn't have the inbox tag'.
> 
> That resulted in an error for me:
> 
> $ notmuch search not tag:inbox
> A Xapian exception occurred: Syntax: <expression> NOT <expression>
> A Xapian exception occurred: Syntax: <expression> NOT <expression>

Like I said earlier. I think that's a bug we should report to the Xapian
folks.

Meanwhile, it just occurred to me that we can make "notmuch search not
tag:inbox" work without any change to Xapian.

For every document we store in the database we put a special term on it
to indicate its type. (We mostly just have documents of type "mail" but
we also have documents of type "timestamp"---see the comment at the top
of lib/database.cc for details.)

So if we take the string "not tag:inbox" and turn it into "type:mail and
not tag:inbox" then that will work just fine. (That's close to what
we're doing currently, but different. Right now we try to parse the
query "not tag:inbox" on its own and then combine the result with
another query generated from a term representing the "mail" type.)

-Carl