Catfish finds all files in the folder

xj25vm · 10-31-2011, 04:17 PM

I use catfish to search for files. If I use the "locate" back-end - it works correctly. If I use the "find" back-end, catfish will find files and folders containing the word I'm searching for in their name - but it will also list in the results every single file in the the folder which has been found. It's like it is performing a search on the full path of those files, not just their name. I've tried with "Exact match" ticked and unticked, I tried with wildcards and without - doesn't seem to make any difference.

I prefer to use it sometimes with "find" - as it finds recent files which have not been indexed yet.

I'm using catfish 0.3.2.

Any suggestions as to what might I be doing wrong? All reviews and articles online about catfish mention nothing about this behaviour.

catkin · 11-01-2011, 03:38 AM

Same behaviour here. From the catfish source (catfish.py):

Code:

512         methods = {
513             'find': (method, '', '%s "' + folder + '" -ignore_readdir_race -noleaf',
514                 '-wholename', '-iwholename', '', 1, 1, 0, 0, 0),

So it is behaving as programmed, if not as you would like or intuitively expect.

catfish --help output does not list any options to change the behaviour and I found no reference to modifying behaviour via a configuration file or environment variables so the only option is to change the source and recompile to .pyc.

xj25vm · 11-01-2011, 04:15 AM

Thanks for that. I've sent an email to the developer - maybe he decides to add an option in the interface to switch this on or off.

In the meanwhile, I suppose the only option for me is to disable this in the source code.

xj25vm · 11-01-2011, 05:06 AM

Just one more question - any ideas how to modify the code above to remove the "wholename" and "iwholename" options? I've tried removing them (and just leaving empty '' instead) and catfish compiles - but when trying to search with find, it complains of wrong arguments. Do I need to remove anything else in that piece of code, or get rid of the single quotes as well?

Thanks

catkin · 11-01-2011, 11:40 AM

Sorry, I don't python and a quick squizz at the code got me confuzzled.

NightSky · 11-10-2011, 02:42 PM

Don't python here either; But looked up PyGtk2 using pkgtool and then googled it, as it is a dependency, as is Glade2. Found this for PyGtk2: http://www.pygtk.org/pygtk2tutorial/...roduction.html
Wonder if it is a path issue?
Found this for Glade2: http://glade.gnome.org/
In any case learning python & Xml is way off task for search functionality, i finally know how to do manually. Got bigger fish nipping me. Simple is really a relative term in this forum

xj25vm · 11-10-2011, 04:03 PM

A friend of mine had a look at the code, and came up with this patch for the catfish.py file (after the obligatory pre-payment beer :-) ):

Code:

--- catfish.py.old	2011-11-02 21:00:24.715160753 +0000
+++ catfish.py	2011-11-02 20:59:25.790053055 +0000
@@ -511,7 +511,7 @@
         method_name = [method, 'locate'][method=='slocate']
         methods = {
             'find': (method, '', '%s "' + folder + '" -ignore_readdir_race -noleaf',
-                '-wholename', '-iwholename', '', 1, 1, 0, 0, 0),
+                '-name', '-iname', '', 1, 1, 0, 0, 0),
             'locate': (method, '', '%s', '', '-i', '-n %i' % limit,
                 1, 0, 1, 0, 0),
             'tracker': ('tracker-search', 'trackerd', '%s', '', '', '-l %i' % limit,

It essentially replaces "-wholename" and "-iwholename" with "-name" and "-iname" arguments. It works just fine after this change. Not really sure why both arguments are needed - "-iname" would have done just fine - but I kept it as close to the original as possible.

I've sent the patch to the author - but had no reply. Maybe he will get around to it sometime. Otherwise, you can just patch it yourself.

I don't use catfish that much myself (I mainly use find on the command line) - I have few users who prefer not to learn too much Linux - just use it. I know, the idea abhors some technical people - but some people like to spend their time learning other stuff, not computers.

catkin · 11-12-2011, 01:47 AM

Thanks for the fix xj25vm

In case it's useful, here is how I installed a fixed version, starting with the source tarball from the catfish home page.

Code:

cp catfish-0.3.2.tar.gz /tmp \
    && cd /tmp \
    && tar xzvf catfish-0.3.2.tar.gz \
    && cd catfish-0.3.2 \
    && ./configure --prefix=/usr \
    && sed -i 's/wholename/name/g' catfish.py \
    && make install

xj25vm · 11-12-2011, 01:58 PM

Excellent work. Didn't test your version - but hope it all works just the same. It might come in handy for somebody else looking for a fix. Thanks for posting