Re: merge pick and scan

[Ralph Corderoy]

Hi Conrad,

> but here's a case that is currently unambiguous (because MH commands
> have side effects) that might cause complications for general switch
> parsing:
>
>   refile +foo `pick ... +bar`

I agree.  The search folder would have to be set first as refile's
folder would always be the destination to remain backwards compatible.

    folder +bar
    refile +foo -from foo

> Indeed, why wouldn't we then want to say
>
>   refile -from john +* +foo

At some point, the syntax can't handle what ever's required and multiple
commands would be necessary.  But given ( and ) should be synonyms for
-lbrace and -rbrace anyway, borrowing from find(1), perhaps

    refile +foo \( -from john ++\* \)   # Like bash's globstar.

But I have been thinking about sequences which span folders.  Is a
sequence really just an optimisation of a folder containing linked
messages?  Except that an empty sequence is, wronly IMO, not supported.

This opens the path to all messages in a single store with
folders/sequences being ‘views’ onto those messages.  Then do folders
move to an implementation more like sequences?  With a ‘synchronise
export’ operation to bring a directory tree up to date with a
sequence/folder.

-- 
Cheers, Ralph.