On Sat, Dec 10, 2011 at 22:15, Jameson Graef Rollins <jroll...@finestructure.net> wrote: > On Sat, 10 Dec 2011 20:32:22 +0200, Ciprian Dorin Craciun > <ciprian.crac...@gmail.com> wrote: >> Quick question: why isn't it reasonable to export a **single** >> email in JSON format (by using the `show` sub-command)? (I mean I >> understand that in order to be able to correctly parse the output we >> need only one "object" (i.e. a list of threads, containing a list of >> emails, etc.). But there might be use cases in which we need a >> "twist".) > > Hi, Ciprian. I agree that it would be nice too have the ability to > output single messages without the rest of their thread. I have on > occasion wanted this functionality, but never enough to get around to > implementing it. It definitely wouldn't be that hard to implement, > though. > > The notmuch show function is actually going through a pretty major > overhaul at the moment. I bet as soon as that's done we can get some > sort of single-message output going. > > jamie.
I've given a quick look into `notmuch-show.c` (commit from December 4) and indeed it seems quite trivial to add new formats. Thus I wonder: a) Is the code suitable for experimenting such a feature? (I mean is the "overhaul" almost done, or still in progress?) b) What would be the estimate for the "overhaul" completion? (To start prototyping such a feature...) c) Would someone else be interested in such a feature? (Or it's something so remote that only the two of us stumbled upon it?) I think it's quite hard to get this feature "right". I.e. I can see the following different -- but equally likely -- use-cases: * in my use-case I would need each line of the output to be a standalone JSON object of an individual message; (thus I can script with Bash `notmuch ... | while read message ; do ... ; done`;) * maybe someone else would need that the output to contain **exactly one** such message (maybe the first); * and maybe for someone else the use case involves having no `--entire-thread` by default; * further more someone else would actually prefer a "flatten" list of messages (not the currently nested list); * or maybe the separator in the first use case should be `\0` instead of `\n`; Thanks, Ciprian. P.S.: I think all sub-commands that output line-feed separated records should also have the option to split them instead with `\0`. (I.e. `xargs` insists upon this I think, if not it separates by space or new-line.) _______________________________________________ notmuch mailing list notmuch@notmuchmail.org http://notmuchmail.org/mailman/listinfo/notmuch