Bug#423373: Implement simple debtags-based searches

[Stefano Zacchiroli]

On Fri, May 11, 2007 at 12:20:13PM +0200, Enrico Zini wrote:
>  apt-cache search --filter=gui ...
<snip>
>  - any objections / improvements for this feature?

Super-cool, exactly in these days I was thinking about why debtags is
not that widespread as a topic discussion for you at the forthcoming
DebConf, but hey ... here we are :-)

Pushing it into apt-cache is for sure a starting point, but I object
having (only) an additional switch as --filter.

I thing the strength of apt-cache is its "full-text like" way of
searching. The user don't have to know switches or special syntaxes, she
can just type keywords [1], in an approach a-la-google.

So I think you should implement this feature as some "derived" data
associated to a given package entry in the package database and on which
apt-cache search additionally search per default. That way the user can
simply do "apt-cache search game gui" and search for a game with a gui,
where "gui" is present as a searchable value only if the corresponding
tags are present on a matching package.

Of course this does not prevent having special syntaxes (maybe relying
on common keywords which are pointless to search for or on full-text
common operators like "+" and "-") or extra flags for refining the
search. But this should not hinder that the default is google-like, IMO
of course.

What about implementing the feature as a new apt-cache command, other
than search, which perform such a search and which aim to become the
future replacement of the current "search" command?

[1] ok, they are regexp, but it doesn't really matter since it's a
    syntax all users probably know well

-- 
Stefano Zacchiroli -*- PhD in Computer Science ............... now what?
zack@{cs.unibo.it,debian.org,bononia.it} -%- http://www.bononia.it/zack/
(15:56:48)  Zack: e la demo dema ?    /\    All one has to do is hit the
(15:57:15)  Bac: no, la demo scema    \/    right keys at the right time
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