Add the possibility to search for files in the packages, like a command name

[mickours]

It would interesting to have a page that permits the users to search for a file in the packages. A good example is a program that you need but you only now the executable name that differ from the package name. For example, I was looking for the readelf command and I was not able to find it from the Packages search page or the nix search tool.

Debian has a good tool for that:
https://www.debian.org/distrib/packages#search_contents
The readelf example:
https://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=contents&keywords=%2Fbin%2Freadelf&mode=path&suite=stable&arch=any

It would be very nice to have a similar page in the Nixos site.

[samueldr]

Agreed, though this would need server-side work to happen (or some service hosted elsewhere).

All current search pages on the website are completely handled client-side by having an index loaded from the server.

Using nix-index you can locally search for files for any package (as long as it's built on hydra). It may be possible to build a service that, as a backend, would use nix-index to return results.

[mickours]

Also, command-not-found seems to do the job locally:

$ readelf
The program ‘readelf’ is currently not installed. You can install it by typing:
  nix-env -iA nixos.binutils-unwrapped

I'm using Zsh and the support was broken at the time I've created this issue.
Still, the idea remain interesting for systems that do not have command-not-found activated.

Maybe the command-not-found script can be adapted to be use as backend for the website as an alternative to nix-index.

[ghost]

I don't think "interesting" is the right word... nobody seems to know which packages supplies "phpize" and "php.h", and the packages they suggest do not exist in the search. Minding that I only use NixOS because Replit (my IDE) uses NixOS, it seems vital to any distribution to be able to locate the appropriate packages supplying the target tools when they exist at all.

[ysndr]

With flakes we can already exctract app attributes
I have looked into integrating nix-index (for nixpkgs at least).
As far as I see it should be quite possible to either speak with hydra directly or (better) integrate nix-index and track files in <drv>/bin
It's a bigger amendment to nixos-search and not as pressing here as it's available as its own tool in form of nix-index

[fricklerhandwerk]

Program names are now indexed. Another use case are libraries: #673

[nixos-discourse]

This issue has been mentioned on NixOS Discourse. There might be relevant details there:

https://discourse.nixos.org/t/2023-07-20-documentation-team-meeting-notes-65/30876/1