Hi Paul,
$ mark -list
cur: 1
odd: 1 3 5 7 9
even: 2 4 6 8 10
$ mark -seq even -list
even: 2 4 6 8 10
$ mark -seq even -list 2-6
even: 2 4 6 <-- previously output was "even: 2 4 6 8 10"
$ mark -seq odd -list 2-6
odd: 3 5 <-- previously output was "odd: 1 3 5 7 9"
Up to here seems fine, assuming ‘2-6’ can also be ‘3 5 2 4 6’ or
‘3 5 even:3’. IOW, all the things I could normally scan(1), etc.
$ mark -list 2-6 <-- previously behaved as "mark -list", above
odd: 3 5
even: 2 4 6
I would have expected an extra line,
$ mark -list 2-6
+ cur:
odd: 3 5
even: 2 4 6
because the messages given are being intersected with the normal
‘mark -list’ output you showed at the start above. IOW, if no messages
are given then the default is ‘all’. This seems more orthogonal to me
and means a script can give multiple sequences and expect one line for
each in the output in the order the sequences were stated; there's no
need to parse the ‘foo:’ or ‘bar (private):’ to identify the sequence
involved.
$ mark -list 1-4 <-- previously behaved as "mark -list", above
cur: 1
odd: 1 3
even: 2 4
An example not given here would be empty sequences, i.e. ones which
don't exist. Currently:
$ mark -l -s cur -s foo -s bar -s xyzzy
cur: 96894
foo:
bar: 97036
xyzzy:
$
Still showing empty sequences with the new intersection would again be
less surprising and simpler to explain.
$ mark -l -s cur -s foo -s bar -s xyzzy notcur
cur:
foo:
bar: 97036
xyzzy:
$
BTW, ‘first’, etc., aren't sequences, as we know.
$ p -seq first 42
pick: sequence name is reserved: first
Yet,
$ mark -l -s first -s cur -s last -s foo -s bar -s xyzzy
first:
cur: 96894
last:
foo:
bar: 97036
xyzzy:
$
mark(1) doesn't complain and I'd expect it to as pick does.
How does this new functionality help your original need? Were you
thinking ‘mark -l -s foo 42’ would either be silent or not depending if
42 were in foo? If so, what parsing language were you cranking up to
check. ;-)
Finally, when I've wanted this functionality in the past, I've wondered
if a new pick(1) test would be the way. Perhaps ‘-msg’ to match
mh-format(5)'s ‘msg’ function.
pick -msg 42 foo
The exit status would be sufficient to tell if 42 was in sequence foo.
Or if I want to know if any of sequence foo are in bar, xyzzy, or the
last few messages then it would be nice if ‘-msg’s parameter could be
more than a single message number.
pick -msg foo bar xyzzy last:42
Really, all this brings us back to needing a nice set-based consistent
algebra which all commands take. :-) Completely made up, without much
consideration:
forw subject:nmh \( !address:paul / mime-type:image/jpeg \)
Mercurial, the CVS, Subversion, ... thing, has a couple of notations
which are interesting for identifying files and revisions. The former
has predicate functions, and the later has operators covering ancestry
because revisions form a tree, much like emails in a thread.
Specifying file sets https://manned.org/hg.1#head14
Specifying revisions https://manned.org/hg.1#head24
--
Cheers, Ralph.