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

[Rob Owens <rowens@ptd.net>]

----- Original Message -----
> From: "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.
> 

5)  Oh yeah, and no tab completion when entering table names!