MBOX-Line: From MRC at Washington.EDU  Thu Feb 21 14:14:08 2008
To: imap-protocol@u.washington.edu
From: Mark Crispin <MRC@Washington.EDU>
Date: Fri Jun  8 12:34:41 2018
Subject: [Imap-protocol] SEARCH SUBJECT
In-Reply-To: <1203631656.4901.270.camel@hurina>
References: <1203623023.4901.242.camel@hurina>
	<47BDE0F2.4070704@watson.ibm.com>
	<alpine.WNT.1.00.0802211344070.4860@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washignton.EDU>
	<1203631656.4901.270.camel@hurina>
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.1.00.0802211411191.4800@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washignton.EDU>

On Fri, 22 Feb 2008, Timo Sirainen wrote:
> So, how is this related to what you said about substring searches a year
> ago?
> http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/pipermail/imap-protocol/2006-December/000328.html

That dealt with false *negatives* due to failure to do substring matching.

I don't object to fuzzy matching that adds positives that a non-fuzzy 
search would not match.

But that is a good question.  It deserves clarification in the 
specification.  The principle should be "match what you are required to 
match, but if you have some fuzzy algorithms that produce useful 
additional matches, then go for it."

In spam filtering, we want to err on the side of false negatives.  But in 
IMAP searches, we err on the side of false positives.

> I doubt Google (or anyone else implementing fuzzy matching) supports
> substring matching.

They claimed that it works.

-- Mark --

http://staff.washington.edu/mrc
Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.
Si vis pacem, para bellum.

