Match all messages.
*term*
- Match all messages containing *term*, possibly after
- stemming or phase splitting. For discussion of stemming in
- notmuch see :any:`notmuch-search-terms(7)`. Stemming only applies
- to unquoted terms (basic values) in s-expression queries.
+
+ Match all messages containing *term*, possibly after stemming or
+ phrase splitting. For discussion of stemming in notmuch see
+ :any:`notmuch-search-terms(7)`. Stemming only applies to unquoted
+ terms (basic values) in s-expression queries. For information on
+ phrase splitting see :any:`fields`.
``(`` *field* |q1| |q2| ... |qn| ``)``
Restrict the queries |q1| to |qn| to *field*, and combine with *and*
FIELDS
``````
-*Fields* (also called *prefixes* in notmuch documentation)
+*Fields* [#aka-pref]_
correspond to attributes of mail messages. Some are inherent (and
immutable) like ``subject``, while others ``tag`` and ``property`` are
settable by the user. Each concrete field in
:any:`notmuch-search-terms(7)`. The row *user* refers to user defined
fields, described in :any:`notmuch-config(1)`.
+Most fields are either *phrase fields* [#aka-prob]_ (which match
+sequences of words), or *term fields* [#aka-bool]_ (which match exact
+strings). *Phrase splitting* breaks the term (basic value or quoted
+string) into words, ignore punctuation. Phrase splitting is applied to
+terms in phrase (probabilistic) fields. Both phrase splitting and
+stemming apply only in phrase fields.
+
.. _field-table:
.. table:: Fields with supported modifiers
``(not Bob Marley)``
Match messages containing neither "Bob" nor "Marley", nor their stems,
+``"quick fox"`` ``quick-fox`` ``quick@fox``
+ Match the *phrase* "quick" followed by "fox" in phrase fields (or
+ outside a field). Match the literal string in a term field.
+
``(subject quick "brown fox")``
Match messages whose subject contains "quick" (anywhere, stemmed) and
the phrase "brown fox".
+NOTES
+=====
+
+.. [#aka-pref] a.k.a. prefixes
+
+.. [#aka-prob] a.k.a. probabilistic prefixes
+
+.. [#aka-bool] a.k.a. boolean prefixes
+
.. |q1| replace:: :math:`q_1`
.. |q2| replace:: :math:`q_2`
.. |qn| replace:: :math:`q_n`