> What's the advantage to adding this to the library? Why not just > notmuch_query_search_messages, iterate over the messages and use > notmuch_message_get_header(msg, "from") to accumulate the author > information, and then output that? Unless I'm overlooking something > (which is possible), there are no algorithmic advantages to doing this > in the library. The view I have in mind would look something like: John Doe (1234 msg) |- first thread subject |- second thread subject |- third thread subject Jane Doe (234 msg) |- first thread subject |- second thread subject |- third thread subject ... The problem is, that if I want to have a list of all authors in the database I'd have to iterate over all messages (naively implemented, whenever I render the view, or I somehow have to persistently store this list and update it on a regular basis), whereas the notmuch database already has this information but doesn't reveal if I'm not overlooking something. To do a notmuch_query_search_messages I'd have to know what to search for, whereas a notmuch_database_get_all_authors would give me exactly what I'm looking for in short time since it is already indexed by xapian. Best, Johannes