Re: Matching the beginningor end of an address

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On Sun, Mar 29, 2026 at 02:29:41PM +0200, S=C3=A9bastien Hinderer wrote:
>Kevin J. McCarthy (2026/03/29 20:05 +0800):
>> On Sun, Mar 29, 2026 at 12:45:13PM +0200, S=C3=A9bastien Hinderer wrote:
>> > In my configuration I have hooks like
>> >
>> > save-hook '~f amazon.fr' '=3Damazon/'
>> >
>> > As such, I am assuming that a mail sent from any address *ocntaining*
>> > amazon.fr, like for instance [email protected], would
>> > match.
>> >
>> > Is there a way to make the regexp more restrictive and to match those
>> > messages where amazon.fr appears at the end of the address?
>>
>> Yes, see the example at http://www.mutt.org/doc/manual/#pattern-hook for=
 an
>> example. It shows send-hook, but this also works for save-hook.
>
>Oh ye, indeed! But then is it documented somewhere that ^ and $ work? Is
>it on purpose that they are not mentionned in the part of the manual
>about regular expressions?

Yes, at http://www.mutt.org/doc/manual/#regexp see the sentence:
   The period =E2=80=9C.=E2=80=9D matches any single character. The caret =
=E2=80=9C^=E2=80=9D and the
   dollar sign =E2=80=9C$=E2=80=9D are metacharacters that respectively mat=
ch the empty
   string at the beginning and end of a line.

>> Also notice in the example how "." is backslashed, because that matches =
any
>> character.
>
>I indeed didn't pay attention so far. I think I was under the wrong
>impression that, because the pattern is between single quotes, . is
>taken litteraly.

 From a "shell quoting" point of view, single quotes make everything be=20
un-evaluated.  But regular expressions are an additional layer of=20
complexity, evaluated after the string is processed by mutt.

>So we agree that, for isntance int he example you show, the quotes are
>not at all optional and that, although they are there, the special
>characters occurring in regular expresisons between these quotes do need
>to be escaped to get back their ordinary meaning?

Without the single quotes, it gets trickier, because you have two layers=20
to go through.  I definitely recommend you use single quotes or you'll=20
have to double the backslashes.  See the second example line at=20
http://www.mutt.org/doc/manual/#save-hook for what that looks like.

--=20
Kevin J. McCarthy
GPG Fingerprint: 8975 A9B3 3AA3 7910 385C  5308 ADEF 7684 8031 6BDA

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