Re: mail regex

[Sam Roberts]

Bon matin!

Quoting Sergey Poznyakoff <address@hidden>, who wrote:
> Actually, I am thinking about a more general approach. Sometimes it
> is necessary to select letters on the contents of an arbitrary
> header.  So, I'd extend the search syntax to something like
> 
>       Received:/.*mirddin.*/
> 
> meaning select all the letters with the given regexp in Received: header.
> If the "header:" portion is omitted, it defaults to Subject:.
> Any comments?

Have you looked at Mutt's pattern's? They do this, here's an excerpt from
the docs:

  4.2.  Patterns

  Many of Mutt's commands allow you to specify a pattern to match
  (limit, tag-pattern, delete-pattern, etc.).  There are several ways to
  select messages:

  ~A              all messages
  ~b EXPR         messages which contain EXPR in the message body
  ~B EXPR         messages which contain EXPR in the whole message
  ~c USER         messages carbon-copied to USER
  ~C EXPR         message is either to: or cc: EXPR
  ~D              deleted messages
  ~d [MIN]-[MAX]  messages with ``date-sent'' in a Date range
  ~E              expired messages
  ~e EXPR         message which contains EXPR in the ``Sender'' field
  ~F              flagged messages
  ~f USER         messages originating from USER
  ~g              PGP signed messages
  ~G              PGP encrypted messages
  ~h EXPR         messages which contain EXPR in the message header
  ~k              message contains PGP key material
  ~i ID           message which match ID in the ``Message-ID'' field
  ~L EXPR         message is either originated or received by EXPR
  ~l              message is addressed to a known mailing list
  ~m [MIN]-[MAX]  message in the range MIN to MAX *)
  ~n [MIN]-[MAX]  messages with a score in the range MIN to MAX *)
  ~N              new messages
  ~O              old messages
  ~p              message is addressed to you (consults $alternates)
  ~P              message is from you (consults $alternates)
  ~Q              messages which have been replied to
  ~R              read messages
  ~r [MIN]-[MAX]  messages with ``date-received'' in a Date range
  ~S              superseded messages
  ~s SUBJECT      messages having SUBJECT in the ``Subject'' field.
  ~T              tagged messages
  ~t USER         messages addressed to USER
  ~U              unread messages
  ~v              message is part of a collapsed thread.
  ~x EXPR         messages which contain EXPR in the `References' field
  ~y EXPR         messages which contain EXPR in the `X-Label' field
  ~z [MIN]-[MAX]  messages with a size in the range MIN to MAX *)

  Where EXPR, USER, ID, and SUBJECT are ``regular expressions''.

There is a configuration variable, as well, which is how to apply
a regex that doesn't have a ~ escape before it, so you can decide
whether by default you want to search subjects, addresses, both,
etc.

Cheers,
Sam

-- 
Sam Roberts <address@hidden> (Vivez sans temps mort!)