Fixup the description of the example python code

[notmuch-wiki] / howto.mdwn

diff --git a/howto.mdwn b/howto.mdwn
index 0e75acc82bdc4b2aee8f9e957c6e8047a90d07a7..76405431282172106b605eb8d8f91a173dab9793 100644 (file)
--- a/howto.mdwn
+++ b/howto.mdwn
@@ -30,22 +30,21 @@ various "third party" notmuch utilities.
 
 * <span id="print_filenames">**Print only filenames of a search (python bindings)**</span>
 
 
 * <span id="print_filenames">**Print only filenames of a search (python bindings)**</span>
 

-  Notmuch includes [python bindings](http://pypi.python.org/pypi/notmuch)
-  to the notmuch shared library. Extensive API documentation
-  [is available](http://packages.python.org/notmuch).
+  Notmuch includes python bindings to the notmuch shared
+  library. Extensive API documentation [is
+  available](http://notmuchmail.readthedocs.org/).

 
   The bindings are very simple to use.  As an example, given you have
   the python bindings installed (or simply set your PYTHONPATH
   environment variable to point to the .../bindings/python directory),
 
   The bindings are very simple to use.  As an example, given you have
   the python bindings installed (or simply set your PYTHONPATH
   environment variable to point to the .../bindings/python directory),

-  this script will print the filenames of a matching search:
+  this snippet will produce a list of mails matching the given
+  expression:

 
 

-                             #!/usr/bin/env python
-                             import sys
-                             import notmuch
-                             search = " ".join(sys.argv[1:])
-                             q = notmuch.Database().create_query(search)
-                             for m in q.search_messages():
-                                 print m.get_filename()
+          >>> import notmuch
+          >>> db = notmuch.Database()
+          >>> query = db.create_query('tag:inbox AND NOT tag:killed')
+          >>> list(query.search_messages()) # doctest:+ELLIPSIS
+          [...]

 
 * <span id="sync_maildir_flags">**Sync notmuch tags and maildir flags**</span>
 
 
 * <span id="sync_maildir_flags">**Sync notmuch tags and maildir flags**</span>
 


@@ -114,3 +113,28 @@ various "third party" notmuch utilities.
   At this point, one should run a sanity check on the tags, and if everything
   has merged correctly, the ~/.notmuch.bak directory is expendable, as is
   ~/out.nm.
   At this point, one should run a sanity check on the tags, and if everything
   has merged correctly, the ~/.notmuch.bak directory is expendable, as is
   ~/out.nm.

+
+* <span id="nbox">**Dealing with mbox and other formats**</span>
+
+  notmuch by itself is unable to handle non-maildir mail archives.  One tool
+  to solve this is called mb2md.  Assuming an mbox in ~/test.mbox and ones
+  mail archives to be in ~/Mail, an invocation would look like
+
+                           $ mb2md -s ~/test.mbox -d ~/Mail/mynewmaildirname
+
+  Note that specifying the paths for -s and -d is necessary.  This will create
+  a new maildir in ~/Mail/mynewmaildirname from the mbox at ~/test.mbox.
+
+  Often the formats are more convoluted, however.  Many lists provide an
+  almost-but-not-quite-mbox format that mailman produces, as can be seen, for
+  example, [here](http://lists.xapian.org/pipermail/xapian-devel/).  These
+  files can be converted with some degree of success to mbox using the script
+  found
+  [here](http://www.hermann-uwe.de/blog/converting-mailman-gzipd-text-archive-files-to-proper-mbox-files),
+  and from mbox to maildir as above.
+
+  However, many of these lists also have a gmane version, which, where it
+  exists, achieves far better results than dealing with the messy mailman
+  output.  Using the instructions from [Gmane's
+  site](http://gmane.org/export.php), we can download an mbox file, which we
+  can then convert to maildir using mb2md or other utility.