On Wed, 24 Feb 2010 15:27:18 +0100 (CET), ra...@free.fr wrote: > > > I definitely want to be able to pipe single-field lists coming from > > > notmuch to grep, xargs, shell for loops, etc. without having to > > decode > > > JSON. > > > > While I would love to see JSON (even by default), I agree. If I just > > want to code up a notmuch-based address book with sth like: > > > > notmuch show to:Diana --output=to --sort=relevance --limit=20 > > > > just getting back a plain list of mail addresses is the easiest to > > handle. > > This would also be useful for the Emacs/Vim interfaces. For instance, my > smart completion patch > would really benefit from notmuch being capable of outputing various fields > in all messages in plain text > separated by newlines (this is even easier to handle in emacs code than > JSON). In fact, most of the C code I had > to write for this patch is better replaced by the --output option...
Ok, I'm convinced. I can see how they're both useful. I had been thinking more about the fact that text output isn't so useful for multiline content (like message content), but I can see how it would be useful for single line output. I had also been thinking about the fact that the current "text" output, specifically for the "show" command, *is* structured, but just not according to any standard that I know of. If the output is going to be structured (ie. "show" output) then it should be in JSON format. If not, like the output of a single field that is a single line, then having text output is definitely useful. jamie.
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