[lug] grep as imap client?

[Daniel Webb]

On Fri, Mar 04, 2005 at 10:36:12AM -0700, dan radom wrote:

> > The problem with the imap search functionality (based on my limited
> > research) is that it is tied to an individual mailbox.  I've often wanted
> > to search all of the subscribed folders (using grep foo *) or some such.
> > I know evolution has the virtual folder functionality but it was pretty
> > slow in the past and I've got users that want a terminal based option.
> 
> this kind of action would be easily scriptable via a mutt (with imap
> support) macro.

How long does this take?  Is IMAP a grep-like search, or an indexed
search?

$ time grep -r somethingsomething mail/*

real    1m21.813s
user    0m0.600s
sys     0m3.570s

$ time mairix somethingsomething
Matched 0 messages

real    0m0.021s
user    0m0.020s
sys     0m0.000s

This is a fast machine, by the way.