Consult-locate uses consult--default-regexp-compiler?

[abdulnafe-t]

Hello, I'm back with yet another question.

I noticed that the consult-locate-builder has consult--default-regexp-compiler hard-coded in, unlike the builders for consult-find, consult-fd, etc, which call consult-compile-regexp instead. I was wondering if there was a specific reason why that is? Does locate have some specific requirement that I'm missing?

I ask because I would like to be able to customize the regex compiler for consult-locate by advising it, but it seems like this can't be done with the current setup.

Thanks in advance!

[minad]

Locate usually doesn't support regular expressions since it uses an index.

[abdulnafe-t]

As far as I can tell, GNU locate does with the --regex or -r flag, as does plocate. From the former's man page:

-r, --regex
The pattern specified on the command line is understood to be a regular expression, as opposed to a glob pattern. The Regular expressions work in the same was as in emacs except for the fact that "." will match a newline. GNU find uses the same regular expressions. Filenames whose full paths match the specified regular expression are printed (or, in the case of the -c option, counted). If you wish to anchor your regular expression at the ends of the full path name, then as is usual with regular expressions, you should use the characters ^ and $ to signify this.

--regextype R
Use regular expression dialect R. Supported dialects include ‘findutils-default', ‘posix-awk', ‘posix-basic', ‘posix-egrep', ‘posix-extended', ‘posix-minimal-basic', ‘awk', ‘ed', ‘egrep', ‘emacs', ‘gnu-awk', ‘grep' and ‘sed'. See the Texinfo documentation for a detailed explanation of these dialects.

[minad]

Yes, some locate implementations do. But in this case, the index is not used and the benefit of locate is mostly gone. You go from instantaneous to O(n).

[minad]

plocate on my system for instance:

Usage: plocate [OPTION]... PATTERN...

  -b, --basename         search only the file name portion of path names
  -c, --count            print number of matches instead of the matches
  -d, --database DBPATH  search for files in DBPATH
                         (default is /var/lib/plocate/plocate.db)
  -i, --ignore-case      search case-insensitively
  -l, --limit LIMIT      stop after LIMIT matches
  -0, --null             delimit matches by NUL instead of newline
  -N, --literal          do not quote filenames, even if printing to a tty
  -r, --regexp           interpret patterns as basic regexps (slow)
      --regex            interpret patterns as extended regexps (slow)
  -w, --wholename        search the entire path name (default; see -b)
      --help             print this help
      --version          print version information

[abdulnafe-t]

Oh, I didn't know that. Thank you for explaining!