MBOX-Line: From blong at google.com  Wed Jul 30 00:43:34 2014
To: imap-protocol@u.washington.edu
From: Brandon Long <blong@google.com>
Date: Fri Jun  8 12:34:53 2018
Subject: [Imap-protocol] Gmail search on Subject
In-Reply-To: <alpine.LSU.2.19.9999.1407292017370.5611@localhost.localdomain>
References: <alpine.LSU.2.19.9999.1407292017370.5611@localhost.localdomain>
Message-ID: <CABa8R6s9ozqSa1d9RGGhQMCEty=voWiFhtci1mukpP3n8atSsg@mail.gmail.com>

In violation of the IMAP spec, Gmail's IMAP search is implemented on top of
our search index, and is not sub-string search.  Well, that's not entirely
true, we do implement sub-string search for "non indexed" headers, which
admittedly is more complicated for developers to understand... but the
performance benefit is considered to be worth it.

If you search for '%' in the Gmail web interface, you'll see that it
matches every message there as well.  That's probably unintended behavior.
 I haven't checked recently, but last I knew, our search index didn't
include symbols, though its possible it does special case some symbols for
things like 'c++'.  In any case, what you're most likely seeing is that
terms are added to the search, the '%' is parsed into nothing, so what
remains is just the added terms (ie, in:foldername).

We've debated before what the "proper" response is in this context, whether
to have no/all results, or whether to have an error response like <ag> NO
[SERVERBUG] when we're given a query which makes no sense to our
implementation.  Currently, we tend to respond with "all in folder" as more
of an accident of implementation than purpose.  In general, clients seem
ill prepared for NO responses... or even to an OK response without an
untagged response.

Brandon


On Tue, Jul 29, 2014 at 7:18 PM, Eduardo Chappa <echappa@gmx.com> wrote:

> Dear all,
>
>   Apologies if this is not the right forum to post this, but it seems that
> it is the de facto place to report bugs on Gmail. I did send this privately
> a few weeks ago, but received not acknowledgement, so I hope this time it
> will be considered.
>
>  A search using the string "%" matches all messages. For example, the
> command
>
> 0000000a SEARCH SUBJECT "%"
>
> matches all messages in my inbox, not only those that contain the string
> "50%", but also those that do not contain it, such as this one.
>
> Thank you.
>
> --
> Eduardo
> http://patches.freeiz.com/alpine/
> _______________________________________________
> Imap-protocol mailing list
> Imap-protocol@u.washington.edu
> http://mailman13.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/imap-protocol
>
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