Re: Package file indexing

[Pierre Neidhardt]

zimoun <address@hidden> writes:

> Hi again, :-)
>
> On Thu, 9 Jan 2020 at 13:55, Pierre Neidhardt <address@hidden> wrote:
>
>> What I originally suggested is that we could equivalently do:
>>
>>   guix search "/foo.*bar" python-
>
> [...]
>
>> > Time to time, I am looking for header C file or latex style but I do
>> > not know the path. I would like to have something like:
>> >
>> >   guix search gmsh.h
>> > or
>> >  guix search ieee*.sty
>>
>> That's OK, if you know the basename then "/gmsh.h" will match.
>> If you only know a substring of the basename, then "/.*gmsh.h" will
>> match too.
>
> My point is just I do not like the key '/' to turn on the file-search
> and I prefer "file:". As said elsewhere. :-)

Why don't you like it?
I don't like "file:" because:

- It can make for ambiguous command line to the human read
  (e.g. "file:file:").
- It's a new arbitrary syntax which the user must learn to use it, which
  means they probably won't.

The benefit of "/" is that it works _incidentally_.  If you are looking
for "bin/hg", then `guix search bin/hg` will do the right thing.

> What is the purpose of this "list-files" for you?

Listing the files of a package like in the example you gave.

What I meant is that we already have a subcommand that outputs a
property of the given packages, i.e. "guix size".  If I'm not mistaken,
there is no "guix package" flag that displays any property for the given
packages.

I am just thinking about keeping consistency across the various
subcommands of Guix.

-- 
Pierre Neidhardt
https://ambrevar.xyz/

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