On Fri, 09 Apr 2010 15:01:35 +0200, "Sebastian Spaeth" <Sebastian@SSpaeth.de> wrote: > On 2010-04-08, Mike Kelly wrote: > > If no parameters are given to notmuch-count, or just '' or '*' are > > given, return the total number of messages in the database. > > I know that cworth was concerned about this syntax on IRC as that would > mean that "notmuch show" would have to spew out all your emails in order > to remain consistent with the search term (he rather wanted to output a > help text if no search term was given). > > But let me express support (It's notmuch worth, I know (haha)) for this > patch. I think it makes lots of sense: > > 1) I often want to know how many mails are in my db. "notmuch count" or > "notmuch count *" is the intuitive syntax I would use for that. Right > now there is no way as far as I can see. I use "notmuch count To" - not very intuitive, though. > 2) Search terms filter out things. The empty search term stands > therefore for all my mails. It is consistent to have the search term '' > represent all my mail. Actually, I'd like to disagree. A search argument of '' should get you a help text. A search argument of '*' should give you all email. > 3) I don't expect a help text for "notmuch count" just as I don't expect > a help text for "notmuch log", we are very explicit about "notmuch help" > and "notmuch help count" in many parts of our documentation. My main concern here is that once you have a gazzillion emails, typing notmuch search with no argument over a slow link (or using it from within a gui by mistake) could really cause a lot of unnecessary compute / data transfer. So I'd rather have a special character be the one that triggers that behavior. /D -- Dirk Hohndel Intel Open Source Technology Center