Paul Melis <paul.melis@surfsara.nl> writes:

> Hi,
>
> How exactly does the search function work when it comes to things like 
> searching in the from or subject field? See the below queries and (lack 
> of) results:
>
> paulmlocal@sara11006:/data$ notmuch search from:dem
> paulmlocal@sara11006:/data$ notmuch search from:demi
> paulmlocal@sara11006:/data$ notmuch search from:demiu
> paulmlocal@sara11006:/data$ notmuch search from:demiur
> paulmlocal@sara11006:/data$ notmuch search from:demiurg
> thread:0000000000012d53   January 18 [1/5] Demiurg HG| Paul Melis, XXXXX
> thread:0000000000011b82  November 14 [3/6] Demiurg HG| Paul Melis; XXXXX
>
> Only the last queries returns the mails I was looking for, while 
> prefixes of the query don't return anything. Even stranger is that the 
> actual from e-mail address is demiurghg@...., so why does "from:demiurg" 
> match (which is also a prefix of the mail address), but all the other 
> don't match?

I guess it has to do with the mysteries of stemming. There is some
information at

            http://notmuchmail.org/searching/

In your case, it would probably help to try

notmuch search from:"demi*"

Note that the * only works at the end.