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fselect

Find files with SQL-like queries

Basic usage

fselect [ARGS] COLUMN[, COLUMN...] [from ROOT[, ROOT...]] [where EXPR] [group by COLUMNS] [order by COLUMNS] [limit N] [into FORMAT]

You write SQL-like query, that's it.

fselect command itself is like a first keyword (select, i.e., file select). But if you'll put one more select behind occasionally, that's not a problem.

Next you put columns you are interested in. It could be file name or path, size, modification date, etc. See full list of possible columns. You can add columns with arbitrary text (put in quotes if it contains spaces). A few functions (aggregating and formatting) are there for your service. You can use arithmetic expressions when it makes sense.

Where to search? Specify with from keyword. You can list one or more directories separated with comma. If you leave the from, then current directory will be processed.

What to search? Use where with any number of conditions.

Order results like in real SQL with order by. All columns are supported for ordering by, as well as asc/desc parameters and positional numeric shortcuts.

Limiting search results is possible with limit. Formatting options are supported with into keyword.

If you want to use operators containing > or <, put the whole query into the double quotes. This will protect query from the shell and output redirection. The same applies to queries with parentheses or *, ? and other special shell metacharacters.

It's ok to use any metacharacters in interactive mode.

It's not a real SQL

Directories to search at are listed with comma separators. In a real SQL such syntax would make a cross product. Here it means just search at A, next at B, and so on.

You can use curly braces instead of the regular parentheses! This helps to avoid a few of shell pitfalls a little bit. Functions with no arguments don't require parentheses at all.

String literals don't really need quotes. You will need to put them just in case you query something with spaces inside. And yes, you should use quotes for glob-patterns or regular expressions in the query on Linux or Mac OS to prevent parameter expansion from the shell. If you are on Windows, feel free to omit most of the quotes.

Commas for column separation aren't needed as well. Column aliasing (with or without as keyword) is not supported.

where section can contain short syntax conditions for boolean columns (like is_audio or other_write).

into keyword specifies output format, not output table.

Joins, unions, and subselects are not supported (yet?).

Columns and fields

Column Meaning Comment
name Returns the name (with extension) of the file
extension or ext Returns the extension of the file
path Returns the path of the file
abspath Returns the absolute path of the file
directory or dirname or dir Returns the directory of the file
absdir Returns the absolute directory of the file
size Returns the size of the file in bytes
fsize or hsize Returns the size of the file accompanied with the unit
uid Returns the UID of the owner
gid Returns the GID of the owner's group
accessed Returns the time the file was last accessed (YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS)
created Returns the file creation date (YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS)
modified Returns the time the file was last modified (YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS)
is_dir Returns a boolean signifying whether the file path is a directory
is_file Returns a boolean signifying whether the file path is a file
is_symlink Returns a boolean signifying whether the file path is a symlink
is_pipe or is_fifo Returns a boolean signifying whether the file path is a FIFO or pipe file
is_char or is_character Returns a boolean signifying whether the file path is a character device or character special file
is_block Returns a boolean signifying whether the file path is a block or block special file
is_socket Returns a boolean signifying whether the file path is a socket file
is_hidden Returns a boolean signifying whether the file is a hidden file (e.g., files that start with a dot on *nix)
has_xattrs Returns a boolean signifying whether the file has extended attributes
capabilities or caps Returns a string describing Linux capabilities assigned to a file Available only on Linux
device Returns the code of device the file is stored on Available only on Linux
inode Returns the number of inode Available only on Linux
blocks Returns the number of blocks (256 bytes) the file occupies Available only on Linux
hardlinks Returns the number of hardlinks of the file Available only on Linux
mode Returns the permissions of the owner, group, and everybody (similar to the first field in ls -la)
user Returns the name of the owner for this file Available only on *nix platforms with users feature enabled
user_read Returns a boolean signifying whether the file can be read by the owner
user_write Returns a boolean signifying whether the file can be written by the owner
user_exec Returns a boolean signifying whether the file can be executed by the owner
user_all Returns a boolean signifying whether the file can be fully accessed by the owner
group Returns the name of the owner's group for this file Available only on *nix platforms with users feature enabled
group_read Returns a boolean signifying whether the file can be read by the owner's group
group_write Returns a boolean signifying whether the file can be written by the owner's group
group_exec Returns a boolean signifying whether the file can be executed by the owner's group
group_all Returns a boolean signifying whether the file can be fully accessed by the group
other_read Returns a boolean signifying whether the file can be read by others
other_write Returns a boolean signifying whether the file can be written by others
other_exec Returns a boolean signifying whether the file can be executed by others
other_all Returns a boolean signifying whether the file can be fully accessed by the others
suid Returns a boolean signifying whether the file permissions have a SUID bit set
sgid Returns a boolean signifying whether the file permissions have a SGID bit set
width Returns the number of pixels along the width of the photo or MP4 file
height Returns the number of pixels along the height of the photo or MP4 file
mime Returns MIME type of the file
is_binary Returns a boolean signifying whether the file has binary contents
is_text Returns a boolean signifying whether the file has text contents
line_count Returns a number of lines in a text file
exif_datetime Returns date and time of taken photo
exif_altitude or exif_alt Returns GPS altitude of taken photo
exif_latitude or exif_lat Returns GPS latitude of taken photo
exif_longitude or exif_lng or exif_lon Returns GPS longitude of taken photo
exif_make Returns name of the camera manufacturer
exif_model Returns camera model
exif_software Returns software name with which the photo was taken
exif_version Returns the version of EXIF metadata
mp3_title or title Returns the title of the audio file taken from the file's metadata
mp3_album or album Returns the album name of the audio file taken from the file's metadata
mp3_artist or artist Returns the artist of the audio file taken from the file's metadata
mp3_genre or genre Returns the genre of the audio file taken from the file's metadata
mp3_year Returns the year of the audio file taken from the file's metadata
mp3_freq or freq Returns the sampling rate of audio or video file
mp3_bitrate or bitrate Returns the bitrate of the audio file in kbps
duration Returns the duration of audio file in seconds
is_shebang Returns a boolean signifying whether the file starts with a shebang (#!)
is_empty Returns a boolean signifying whether the file is empty or the directory is empty
is_archive Returns a boolean signifying whether the file is an archival file default extensions
is_audio Returns a boolean signifying whether the file is an audio file default extensions
is_book Returns a boolean signifying whether the file is a book default extensions
is_doc Returns a boolean signifying whether the file is a document default extensions
is_font Returns a boolean signifying whether the file is a font default extensions
is_image Returns a boolean signifying whether the file is an image default extensions
is_source Returns a boolean signifying whether the file is source code default extensions
is_video Returns a boolean signifying whether the file is a video file default extensions
sha1 Returns SHA-1 digest of a file
sha2_256 or sha256 Returns SHA2-256 digest of a file
sha2_512 or sha512 Returns SHA2-512 digest of a file
sha3_512 or sha3 Returns SHA-3 digest of a file

Functions

Aggregate functions

Queries using these functions return only one result row.

Function Meaning Example
AVG Average of all values select avg(size) from /home/user/Downloads
COUNT Number of all values select count(*) from /home/user/Downloads
MAX Maximum value select max(size) from /home/user/Downloads
MIN Minimum value select min(size) from /home/user where size gt 0
SUM Sum of all values select sum(size) from /home/user/Downloads
STDDEV_POP, STDDEV or STD Population standard deviation, the square root of variance select stddev_pop(size) from /home/user/Downloads
STDDEV_SAMP Sample standard deviation, the square root of sample variance select stddev_samp(size) from /home/user/Downloads
VAR_POP or VARIANCE Population variance select var_pop(size) from /home/user/Downloads
VAR_SAMP Sample variance select var_samp(size) from /home/user/Downloads

Date functions

Used mostly for formatting results.

Function Meaning Example
CURRENT_DATE or CUR_DATE or CURDATE Returns current date select modified, path where modified = CURDATE()
DAY Extract day of the month select day(modified) from /home/user/Downloads
MONTH Extract month of the year select month(name) from /home/user/Downloads
YEAR Extract year of the date select year(name) from /home/user/Downloads
DOW or DAYOFWEEK Returns day of the week (1 - Sunday, 2 - Monday, etc.) select name, modified, dow(modified) from /home/user/projects/FizzBuzz

User functions

These are only available on Unix platforms when users feature has been enabled during compilation.

Function Meaning Example
CURRENT_UID Current real UID select CURRENT_UID()
CURRENT_USER Current real UID's name select CURRENT_USER()
CURRENT_GID Current primary GID select CURRENT_GID()
CURRENT_GROUP Current primary GID's name select CURRENT_GROUP()

Xattr functions

Used to check if particular xattr exists, or to get its value. Supported platforms are Linux, MacOS, FreeBSD, and NetBSD.

Function Meaning Example
HAS_XATTR Check if xattr exists select "name, has_xattr(user.test) from /home/user"
XATTR Get value of xattr select "name, xattr(user.test) from /home/user"
HAS_CAPABILITIES or HAS_CAPS Check if any Linux capability exists for the file select "name, has_caps() from /home/user"
HAS_CAPABILITY or HAS_CAP Check if given Linux capability exists for the file select "name, has_cap('cap_bpf') from /home/user"

String functions

Used mostly for formatting results.

Function Meaning Example
LENGTH or LEN Length of string value select length(name) from /home/user/Downloads order by 1 desc limit 10
LOWER or LOWERCASE or LCASE Convert value to lowercase select lower(name) from /home/user/Downloads
UPPER or UPPERCASE or UCASE Convert value to uppercase select upper(name) from /home/user/Downloads
INITCAP Returns first letter of each word uppercase, all other letters lowercase select initcap('MICHAEL SMITH')
TO_BASE64 or BASE64 Encode value to Base64 select base64(name) from /home/user/Downloads
FROM_BASE64 Decode value from Base64 select from_base64('ZnNlbGVjdCByb2Nrcw==')
SUBSTRING or SUBSTR (str, pos, len) Part of str value starting from pos of (optionally) len characters long. Negative pos means starting pos characters from the end of the string. select substr(name, 1, 8) from /home/user/Downloads
REPLACE (str, from, to) Replace all occurrences of from by to select replace(name, metallica, MetaLLicA) from /home/user/Music/Rock
TRIM Returns string with whitespaces at the beginning and the end stripped select trim(title), trim(artist), trim(album) from /home/user/Music into json
LTRIM Returns string with whitespaces at the beginning stripped select ltrim(title) from /home/user/Music into json
RTRIM Returns string with whitespaces at the end stripped select rtrim(title) from /home/user/Music into json

Japanese string functions

Used for detecting Japanese symbols in file names and such.

Function Meaning Example
CONTAINS_JAPANESE or JAPANESE Check if string value contains Japanese symbols select japanese(name) from /home/user/Downloads
CONTAINS_KANA or KANA Check if string value contains kana symbols select kana(name) from /home/user/Downloads
CONTAINS_HIRAGANA or HIRAGANA Check if string value contains hiragana symbols select contains_hiragana(name) from /home/user/Downloads
CONTAINS_KATAKANA or KATAKANA Check if string value contains katakana symbols select katakana(name) from /home/user/Downloads
CONTAINS_KANJI or KANJI Check if string value contains kanji symbols select kanji(name) from /home/user/Downloads

Other functions

Function Meaning Example
BIN Convert integer value to binary representation select name, size, bin(size) from /home/user/Downloads
HEX Convert integer value to hexadecimal representation select name, size, hex(size), upper(hex(size)) from /home/user/Downloads
OCT Convert integer value to octal representation select name, size, oct(size) from /home/user/Downloads
POWER or POW Raise the value to the specified power select pow(2, 3)
SQRT Returns square root of the value select sqrt(25)
CONTAINS true if file contains string, false if not select contains(TODO) from /home/user/Projects/foo/src
COALESCE Returns first nonempty expression value select name, size, COALESCE(sha256, '---') from /home/user/Downloads
CONCAT Returns concatenated string of expression values select CONCAT('Name is ', name, ' size is ', fsize, '!!!') from /home/user/Downloads
CONCAT_WS Returns concatenated string of expression values with specified delimiter select name, fsize, CONCAT_WS('x', width, height) from /home/user/Images
RANDOM or RAND Returns random integer (from zero to max int, from zero to arg, or from arg1 to arg2) select path from /home/user/Music order by RAND()
FORMAT_TIME or PRETTY_TIME Returns human-readable durations of time in seconds like 2min 26s select format_time(duration) from /home/user/Music
FORMAT_SIZE Returns formatted size of a file select name, FORMAT_SIZE(size, '%.0') from /home/user/Downloads order by size desc limit 10

Let's try FORMAT_SIZE with different format specifiers:

Specifier Meaning Output
format_size(1678123) Default output 1.60MiB
format_size(1678123, ' ') Put a space before units 1.60 MiB
format_size(1678123, '%.0') Round up decimal part 2MiB
format_size(1678123, '%.1') One place for decimal part 1.6MiB
format_size(1678123, '%.2') Two places for decimal part 1.60MiB
format_size(1678123, '%.2 ') Two places for decimal part, and put a space before units 1.60 MiB
format_size(1678123, '%.2 d') Use decimal divider, e.g. 1000-based units, not 1024-based 1.68 MB
format_size(1678123, '%.2 c') Use conventional format, e.g. 1024-based divider, but display 1000-based units 1.60 MB
format_size(1678123, '%.2 k') Display file size in specified unit, this time in kibibytes 1638.79 KiB
format_size(1678123, '%.2 ck') What is a kibibyte? Gimme conventional unit! 1638.79 KB
format_size(1678123, '%.0 ck') And drop this decimal part! 1639 KB
format_size(1678123, '%.0 kb') Use 1000-based kilobyte 1678 KB
format_size(1678123, '%.0kb') Don't put a space 1678KB
format_size(1678123, '%.0s') Use short units 2M
format_size(1678123, '%.0 s') Use short units with a space 2 M

File size units

Specifier Meaning Bytes
t or tib tebibyte 1024 * 1024 * 1024 * 1024
tb terabyte 1000 * 1000 * 1000 * 1000
g or gib gibibyte 1024 * 1024 * 1024
gb gigabyte 1000 * 1000 * 1000
m or mib mebibyte 1024 * 1024
mb megabyte 1000 * 1000
k or kib kibibyte 1024
kb kilobyte 1000
fselect size, path from /home/user/tmp where size gt 2g
fselect fsize, path from /home/user/tmp where size = 5mib
fselect hsize, path from /home/user/tmp where size lt 8kb

Search roots

path [option N] [option] [option] [option...][, path2 [option...]]

When you put a directory to search at, you can specify some options.

Option Meaning
mindepth N Minimum search depth. Default is unlimited. Depth 1 means skip one directory level and search further.
maxdepth N Maximum search depth. Default is unlimited. Depth 1 means search the mentioned directory only. Depth 2 means search mentioned directory and its subdirectories. Synonym is depth.
symlinks If specified, search process will follow symlinks. Default is not to follow. Synonym is sym.
archives Search within archives. Only zip archives are supported. Default is not to include archived content into the search results. Synonym is arc.
gitignore Search respects .gitignore files found. Synonym is git.
hgignore Search respects .hgignore files found. Synonym is hg.
dockerignore Search respects .dockerignore files found. Synonym is dock.
nogitignore Disable .gitignore parsing during the search. Synonym is nogit.
nohgignore Disable .hgignore parsing during the search. Synonym is nohg.
nodockerignore Disable .dockerignore parsing during the search. Synonym is nodock.
dfs Depth-first search mode.
bfs Breadth-first search mode. This is the default.
regexp Use regular expressions to search within multiple roots. Synonym is rx.

Operators

  • = or == or eq
  • != or <> or ne
  • === or eeq
  • !== or ene
  • > or gt
  • >= or gte or ge
  • < or lt
  • <= or lte or le
  • =~ or ~= or regexp or rx
  • !=~ or !~= or notrx
  • like
  • notlike
  • between

Arithmetic operators

Operator Alias
+ plus
- minus
* mul
/ div
% mod

Date and time specifiers

When you specify inexact date and time with = or != operator, fselect understands it as an interval.

fselect path from /home/user where modified = 2017-05-01

2017-05-01 means all day long from 00:00:00 to 23:59:59.

fselect path from /home/user where modified = '2017-05-01 15'

2017-05-01 15 means one hour from 15:00:00 to 15:59:59.

fselect path from /home/user where modified ne '2017-05-01 15:10'

2017-05-01 15:10 is a 1-minute interval from 15:10:00 to 15:10:59.

Other operators assume exact date and time, which could be specified in a more free way:

fselect "path from /home/user where modified === 'apr 1'"
fselect "path from /home/user where modified gte 'last fri'"
fselect path from /home/user where modified gte '01/05'

More about it

fselect uses UK locale, not American style dates, i.e. 08/02 means February 8th.

Regular expressions

Rust flavor regular expressions are used.

MIME and file types

For MIME guessing use field mime. It returns a simple string with deduced MIME type, which is not always accurate.

fselect path, mime, is_binary, is_text from /home/user

is_binary and is_text return true or false based on MIME type detected. Once again, this should not be considered as 100% accurate result, or even possible at all to detect correct file type.

Other fields listed below do NOT use MIME detection. Assumptions are being made based on file extension.

The lists below could be edited with the configuration file.

Search field Extensions
is_archive .7z, .bz2, .bzip2, .gz, .gzip, .lz, .rar, .tar, .xz, .zip
is_audio .aac, .aiff, .amr, .flac, .gsm, .m4a, .m4b, .m4p, .mp3, .ogg, .wav, .wma
is_book .azw3, .chm, .djv, .djvu, .epub, .fb2, .mobi, .pdf
is_doc .accdb, .doc, .docm, .docx, .dot, .dotm, .dotx, .mdb, .odp, .ods, .odt, .pdf, .potm, .potx, .ppt, .pptm, .pptx, .rtf, .xlm, .xls, .xlsm, .xlsx, .xlt, .xltm, .xltx, .xps
is_font .eot, .fon, .otc, .otf, .ttc, .ttf, .woff, .woff2
is_image .bmp, .exr, .gif, .heic, .jpeg, .jpg, .jxl, .png, .svg, .tga, .tiff, .webp
is_source .asm, .bas, .c, .cc, .ceylon, .clj, .coffee, .cpp, .cs, .d, .dart, .elm, .erl, .go, .groovy, .h, .hh, .hpp, .java, .jl, .js, .jsp, .jsx, .kt, .kts, .lua, .nim, .pas, .php, .pl, .pm, .py, .rb, .rs, .scala, .sol, .swift, .tcl, .ts, .vala, .vb, .zig
is_video .3gp, .avi, .flv, .m4p, .m4v, .mkv, .mov, .mp4, .mpeg, .mpg, .webm, .wmv
fselect is_archive, path from /home/user
fselect is_audio, is_video, path from /home/user/multimedia
fselect path from /home/user where is_doc != 1
fselect path from /home/user where is_image = false
fselect path from /home/user where is_video != true

MP3 support

fselect can parse basic MP3 metadata and search by bitrate or sampling frequency of the first frame, title of the track, artist's name, album, genre, and year.

Duration is measured in seconds.

List of supported genres

fselect duration, bitrate, path from /home/user/music
fselect mp3_year, album, title from /home/user/music where artist like %Vampire% and bitrate gte 320
fselect bitrate, freq, path from /home/user/music where genre = Rap or genre = HipHop

File hashes

Column Meaning
sha1 SHA-1 digest of a file
sha2_256 or sha256 SHA2-256 digest of a file
sha2_512 or sha512 SHA2-512 digest of a file
sha3_512 or sha3 SHA3-512 digest of a file
fselect path, sha256, 256 from /home/user/archive limit 5
fselect path from /home/user/Download where sha1 like cb23ef45% 

Output formats

... into FORMAT
Format Description
tabs default, columns are separated with tabulation
lines each column goes at a separate line
list columns are separated with NULL symbol, similar to -print0 argument of find
csv comma-separated columns
json array of resulting objects with requested columns
html HTML document with table
fselect size, path from /home/user limit 5 into json
fselect size, path from /home/user limit 5 into csv
fselect size, path from /home/user limit 5 into html
fselect path from /home/user into list | xargs -0 grep foobar

Configuration file

fselect tries to create a new configuration file if one doesn't exist.

Usual location on Linux:

/home/user_name/.config/fselect/config.toml

On Windows:

C:\Users\user_name\AppData\Roaming\jhspetersson\fselect\config.toml

Fresh config is filled with defaults, feel free to update it.

If no config on the standard paths found, fselect checks its presence next to the executable. You can also specify config location with runtime option, e.g.:

fselect --config /home/user_name/fselect_custom.toml name, size from /home/user_name/Music where is_audio = 1

Check for updates

fselect can be built with update-notifications feature, that enables automatic check for updates. This check is disabled by default. To enable it, put

check_for_updates = true

into the config file.

Command-line arguments

Argument Meaning
--config or -c or /config Specify config file location
--nocolor or --no-color or /nocolor Disable colors
--help or -h or /? or /h Show help and exit

Environment variables

fselect respects NO_COLOR environment variable.

Exit values

Value Meaning
0 everything OK
1 I/O error has occurred during any directory listing or file reading
2 error during parsing of the search query