From 9361fd7119813de5424ad16de8edde0363452d1b Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Jani Nikula Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2016 00:05:08 +0200 Subject: [PATCH] faq: on searching punctuation and regexp --- faq.mdwn | 12 ++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 12 insertions(+) diff --git a/faq.mdwn b/faq.mdwn index c2a8784..1cc224e 100644 --- a/faq.mdwn +++ b/faq.mdwn @@ -41,3 +41,15 @@ Next, use that to query the messages: $ notmuch search $(notmuch search --output=tags \* | \ sed 's/^/not tag:/;2~1s/^/and /') + +## How do I search for punctuation, specific special characters, or regexp? + +Please see the [[notmuch-search-terms manual +page|manpages/notmuch-search-terms-7]] first, + +The main thing to understand is that Xapian, and therefore Notmuch, searches are +closer to natural language searches than regular expression +searches. Punctuation is mostly ignored. + +The boolean prefix searches (see Boolean and Probabilistic Prefixes in the man +page), such as tag: or path: searches, need an exact match. -- 2.43.0