binary data vs. text (in firefox) -- was Re: End of hypocrisy ?

[Rob Owens <rowens@ptd.net>]

----- Original Message -----
> From: "AW" <debian.list.tracker@1024bits.com>
> 
> On Thu, 7 Aug 2014 15:28:08 -0400
> Rob Owens <rowens@ptd.net> wrote:
> 
>  > I do miss the ability to grep my bookmarks.html file.  Maybe there's a
>  > way to do it with sqlite, but I never learned.
>  > 
>  > One thing that attracted me to Linux many years ago was that due to its
>  > Unix heritage,
> 
> You use the SQL language... which also has a long heritage -- I think from
> the
> 1960s... It's fairly simple to produce queries. And there's no need to worry
> about regex, which - IMO - is far more difficult.
> 
> So -- instead of 'grep' you would use sqlite3 [dbfile] [query]
> 
Thanks for the tips.  I'm gonna argue with you just a bit, but I do appreciate your advice.

> To see what kind of things are stored in the firefox places database:
> of course your .default file will most likely be named differently...
> sqlite3 ~/.mozilla/firefox/tolgu73t.default/places.sqlite ".tables"
> 
In the previous thread about systemd, I pointed out that I now need to learn something new in order to do the same thing I've always done (as opposed to learning something new in order to gain new capabilities).  The command you give looks simple enough, but here are the downsides from my perspective:

1)  sqlite3 was not installed on my system (maybe that's Debian's fault).
2)  Besides sqlite3, there is also a package called sqlite.  If I was trying to figure this out on my own, without your advice, I probably would have installed sqlite -- and that doesn't work.  
3)  I need to know to search for ".tables".  Maybe that's obvious to some, but wasn't to me.

Overall I'd say there is a greater barrier to entry for doing simple searches with sqlite3 than with grep.  Your point about regex's being complicated is well taken, but I can grep a plain old text string easily enough.

> and to list bookmarks:
> sqlite3 ~/.mozilla/firefox/tolgu73t.default/places.sqlite "select * from
> moz_bookmarks"
> 
I ran this query, and it shows me the name of my bookmarks, but not the url.  Can you tell me where to find the urls?

I'll also add:

4)  I need to know sql syntax to perform this search.  While sql is certainly popular, I'd say it's not as widely known among users and sysadmins as grep is.  So the use of sqlite3 in firefox could easily be seen as unnecessary complication.

-Rob