Do you remember program, which made database of all strings inside file hierarchy, so one could search strings?

zimon · 10-04-2022, 11:00 AM

I remember having such program in my Linux computer in the 90's.

So it probably run something like

Code:

find . -type f -exec strings '{}' ';' | put_these_in_db_with_filename

..and then there was a client program which was able quickly to find filename and location of some searched string using that db.

I tried to find it with Google, but no luck yet.

I remember having done, THATPROGRAM /
..and often found what I was looking for later. Maybe it even had incremental update algorithm so it was quicker next time an update was run.

Anyone remembers the name or finds it from the net?

fatmac · 10-04-2022, 11:52 AM

Maybe it was a program that used sqlite/sqlite3 as a backend(?).

https://www.sqlite.org/whentouse.html

https://www.sqlitetutorial.net/sqlite-nodejs/connect/

michaelk · 10-04-2022, 11:55 AM

mlocate? The update program is called updatedb and usually runs via a daily cron job.

The user program is called locate.

I misunderstood the question. locate is just used to find files.

I use grep but it does not use a database

rknichols · 10-04-2022, 12:54 PM

Are you thinking of Beagle?

sundialsvcs · 10-04-2022, 01:41 PM

There are a number of these. Macs have the feature built-in, which they call "Spotlight." (But I turned it off some time ago because it's quite a disk-I/O eater.)

As MichaelK corrected himself, "locate" is not the same thing. It quickly finds files but does not examine their content.

teckk · 10-04-2022, 02:27 PM

Quick simple example, trying to shove you in the right direction.

pydb.py

Code:

#!/usr/bin/python

import sqlite3

try:
    conn = sqlite3.connect("Sqlite3.db")
    print("Database Sqlite3.db formed.")
except:
    print("Database Sqlite3.db not formed.")
    
c = conn.cursor()
   
c.execute('''CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS files ([files_id] INTEGER PRIMARY KEY, 
            [file_name] TEXT)''')
          
conn.commit()
          
c.execute('''INSERT INTO files (files_id,file_name) VALUES
            (1,'file1'),
            (2,'file2'),
            (3,'file3'),
            (4,'file4'),
            (5,'file5')
          ''')
          
conn.commit()

Edit:
Oh, and you can look at that with pandas. Or use sqlitebrowser.

teckk · 10-04-2022, 02:51 PM

One more push.

Code:

cat myfile.txt
cat dog cow chicken

sstring.py

Code:

#!/usr/bin/python

def search_str(file_path, word):
    with open(file_path, 'r') as f:
        content = f.read()

        if word in content:
            print(word, 'exist in file')
        else:
            print(word, 'does not exist in file')
            
st = input('Enter string to search for: ')

search_str(r'myfile.txt', st)

Code:

python ./sstring.py
Enter string to search for: dog
dog exist in file

python ./sstring.py
Enter string to search for: bird
bird does not exist in file

pan64 · 10-05-2022, 12:28 AM

I guess you can't store all the strings of all files in a database, that will need a really huge amount of space. And it is usually not required (and cannot be maintained easily).
I think you are looking for locate/updatedb as it was already mentioned in post #3. But you may try to explain [better] what are you looking for.