Pattern Options

$external_search_command

Description:

External search command

Type:

Command (String)

Default:

(empty)

set external_search_command = ""

If set, contains the name of the external program used by “~I” patterns. This will usually be a wrapper script around mairix, mu, or similar indexers other than notmuch (for which there is optional special support).

Here is an example how it works. Let’s assume $external_search_command is set to “mairix_filter”, and mairix_filter is a script which runs the old but well loved mairix indexer with the arguments given to mairix_filter, in the “raw” mode of mairix, producing on the standard output a list of Message-IDs, one per line.

If possible, it also filters down the results coming from mairix such that only messages in the current folder remain. It can do this because it gets a hidden first argument which is the path to the folder. (This can be the type of clean and simple script called a one-liner.)

Now if NeoMutt gets a limit or tag command followed by the pattern “~I ‘-t s:bleeping=’”, mairix_filter runs mairix with the arguments from inside the quotes (the quotes are needed because of the space after “-t”), mairix finds all messages with “bleeping” in the Subject plus all messages sharing threads with these and outputs their file names, and mairix_filter translates the file names into Message-IDs. Finally, NeoMutt reads the Message-IDs and targets the matching messages with the command given to it.

You, the user, still have to rewrite the mairix_filter script to match the behavior of your indexer, but this should help users of indexers other than notmuch to integrate them cleanly with NeoMutt.

---

$pattern_format

Description:

Format string for the Pattern Completion Dialog

Type:

Expando

Notes:

Pipe Support

Default:

set pattern_format = "%2n %-15e  %d"

Alternative:

set pattern_format = "%2{number} %-15{expression}  %{description}"

Specify the format of the data displayed in the Pattern Dialog.

Format Sequences

Short	Long Name	Description
%d	%{description}	Pattern description
%e	%{expression}	Pattern expression
%n	%{number}	Index number
%*X	%{padding-soft:X}	Soft-fill with character X as padding
%>X	%{padding-hard:X}	Right justify the rest of the string and pad with character X
%|X	%{padding-eol:X}	Pad to the end of the line with character X

See also

Expandos: Tutorial Conditional, Howto Conditional, Formatting, Reference

---

$simple_search

Description:

Pattern to search for when search doesn’t contain ~s

Type:

String

Default:

set simple_search = "~f %s | ~s %s"

Specifies how NeoMutt should expand a simple search into a real search pattern. A simple search is one that does not contain any of the ~ pattern operators.

See Pattern Syntax for more information on search patterns.

simple_search applies to several functions, e.g. <delete-pattern>, <limit>, searching in the index, and all of the index colors.

For example, if you simply type “joe” at a search or limit prompt, NeoMutt will automatically expand it to the value specified by this variable by replacing %s with the supplied string. For the default value, “joe” would be expanded to: “~f joe | ~s joe”.

---

$thorough_search

Description:

Decode headers and messages before searching them

Type:

Boolean

Default:

set thorough_search = yes

Affects the ~b, ~B, and ~h search operations described in section “$patterns”.
If set, the headers and body/attachments of messages to be searched are decoded before searching. If unset, messages are searched as they appear in the folder.

Users searching attachments or for non-ASCII characters should set this value because decoding also includes MIME parsing/decoding and possible character set conversions. Otherwise NeoMutt will attempt to match against the raw message received (for example quoted-printable encoded or with encoded headers) which may lead to incorrect search results.