From 4923a7aabbcaac4f4c2024d421ca55b888469c85 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Rocco Rutte Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2006 17:56:33 +0000 Subject: [PATCH] Some notes on the performance of simple strings versus regular expressions in searches. --- doc/manual.xml.head | 34 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 34 insertions(+) diff --git a/doc/manual.xml.head b/doc/manual.xml.head index b2ee8886d..e4d0e117f 100644 --- a/doc/manual.xml.head +++ b/doc/manual.xml.head @@ -5716,6 +5716,40 @@ please refer to mutt's so-called + +Searching and limiting + + +When searching mailboxes either via a search or a limit action, for +some patterns mutt distinguishes between regular expression and string +searches. For regular expressions, patterns are prefixed with +``˜'' and with ``='' for string searches. + + + +Even though a regular expression search is fast, it's several times +slower than a pure string search which is noticable especially on large +folders. As a consequence, a string search should be used instead of a +regular expression search if the user already knows enough about the +search pattern. + + + +For example, when limiting a large folder to all messages sent to or by +an author, it's much faster to search for the initial part of an e-mail +address via =Luser@ instead of +˜Luser@. This is especially true for searching +message bodies since a larger amount of input has to be searched. + + + +Please note that string search is an exact case-sensitive search +while a regular expression search with only lower-case letters performs +a case-insensitive search. + + + + -- 2.40.0