Re: Aptitude Advanced Searching
On Thu, Apr 12, 2007 at 11:04:00AM -0400, Douglas Allan Tutty <dtutty@porchlight.ca> was heard to say:
> On Thu, Apr 12, 2007 at 07:04:48AM -0400, Michael Pobega wrote:
> > On Thu, Apr 12, 2007 at 12:03:20AM -0400, Douglas Allan Tutty wrote:
> > > On Wed, Apr 11, 2007 at 11:39:03PM -0400, Michael Pobega wrote:
> >
> > > > Also, how do I search for descriptions with multiple words? "~dsuper
> > > > nintendo" doesn't seem to work, and neither does "~dsuper" "~dnintendo".
> > > >
> > >
> > > Try ~dsuper~dnintendo
> > >
> >
> > That worked perfectly too. Thanks for the help!
> >
> > I personally think this belongs in the notes for Aptitude, who do I
> > contact about trying to get that added to the notes?
>
> File a wish-list bug against the package aptitude-doc-en.
The two relevant documentation sections are:
(in the user's manual)
<varlistentry>
<term>
<cmdsynopsis>
<command>aptitude</command>
<arg choice='plain'>search</arg>
<arg
choice='plain'><replaceable>pattern1</replaceable></arg>
<arg
rep='repeat'><replaceable>pattern2</replaceable></arg>
</cmdsynopsis>
</term>
<listitem>
<para>
This command searches for packages whose name contains
any of the given <replaceable>pattern</replaceable>s,
printing the result to the terminal. In addition to
just being a string of text, each
<replaceable>pattern</replaceable> can be a search
pattern as described in <xref
linkend='secSearchPatterns'/>.
<footnote>
<para>
In fact, the same is true of the commands that take
packages as arguments, such as
<literal>install</literal> or
<literal>show</literal>.
</para>
</footnote>
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
(in the manpage)
<varlistentry>
<term><literal>search</literal></term>
<listitem>
<para>
Searches for packages matching one of the patterns
supplied on the command line. All packages which
match any of the given patterns will be displayed; for
instance, <quote><literal>aptitude search
'~N'</literal></quote> will list all <quote>new</quote>
packages. For more information on
search patterns, see the section <quote><link
linkend='secSearchPatterns'>Search
Patterns</link></quote> in the &aptitude; reference
manual.
</para>
Both of those state pretty clearly that matches of any terms will be
displayed, and it seems to me that it would be difficult to make it more
prominent without an <emphasis> tag or somesuch (emphasis doesn't render
in the README atm anyway). I'm open to suggestions, though.
I actually would rather require matches on all patterns for
consistency with the curses UI, but this has been in the wild long
enough that I think preserving backwards compatibility for current users
is more important.
Daniel
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