Re: searching articles

[Tassilo Horn]

Martin Rubey <axiomize@yahoo.de> writes:

Hi Martin,

> I would like to do a search-engine like search on a (local, gnus) mail
> archive.  I just tried (in the directory where my mail resides)
>
> M-x grep -i -nH -e "modular" $(grep -l "testInterpolant" *)
>
> but this seems very clumsy.  Any better idea?

Yes, use a search engine!  Currently, there are two very good
competitors in that field.  The first is mairix [1] and the second is
notmuch [2].  The former is integrated into Gnus via the nnmairix
backend that's included in Gnus and recent emacsen.  The latter is very
new and has an emacs interface, too, but provides no Gnus backend.  But
it's not too difficult to jump from a message found by notmuch to jump
to that message in Gnus.  I have a function for that.

Whichever you choose, both should be 1000 times faster than grepping all
mail.

Bye,
Tassilo
__________
[1] http://www.rpcurnow.force9.co.uk/mairix/
[2] http://notmuchmail.org/