Subject: bug#73581: 29.4; Gnus: Error doing a search on nnmaildir with gnus-search-find-grep

From: Daniel Cerqueira <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2025 08:58:29 +0100

Visuwesh <[email-masked]> writes:

> [வெள்ளி ஏப்ரல் 11, 2025] Daniel Cerqueira wrote:
>
>> A bit related:
>>
>> Can you give an overview how to make search queries with find-grep?
>>
>> For example, I am trying to make a query with "grep:"happy birthday"
>> subject:friend" and it is not working.  Should I prepend a "grep:" after
>> each space (on the search keywords)?
>
> AFAIU the code, you can't have space in the grep part.  See how
> gnus-search parses these "meta keywords" in gnus-search-prepare-query.
> Having two grep: selects the last one.  Give the patch below a try, I
> don't think it is a good idea to reuse gnus-search-query-next-expr since
> it does more than just go over "":
>
> diff --git a/lisp/gnus/gnus-search.el b/lisp/gnus/gnus-search.el
> index 41915a0e3c0..7ca67e2134b 100644
> --- a/lisp/gnus/gnus-search.el
> +++ b/lisp/gnus/gnus-search.el
> @@ -2110,20 +2140,28 @@ gnus-search-prepare-query

[...]

The patch did not work.  I haven't recorded the message error, but it
was something to do with the something-generate-artlist having the wrong
number of arguments.

You don't need to fix it, if you don't want to, have too much work, or
don't have time.

>> How to search in the subject or by date?
>
> You can't, the find-grep search backend simply runs grep.  If you don't
> want to use mu or notmuch, you could try writing a backend for mblaze.

Okay.  Regarding subject, I understand grep not doing it; but regarding
time, something can be done with find (it is find-grep after all).  No
need or no pressure in doing it, though.