[bug #22099] Enhancement proposal: SQL-like interface to Find

[James Youngman]

Update of bug #22099 (project findutils):

                Severity:              3 - Normal => 1 - Wish               
                  Status:                    None => Wont Fix               
             Assigned to:                    None => jay                    

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Follow-up Comment #1:

Somebody already implemented this with XPath instead of SQL.

http://uucode.com/texts/xfind/

Unfortunately, while there were some interesting ideas in there, the code was
not designed in such a way that I could introduce a
findutils/find/contrib/far-out-concepts directory in the code base and
optionally build another executable; instead, the existing functionality of
"find" was done away with and replaced with XPath.

It might be interesting to devise some kind of plugin interface.  I think
this would have precede any of the more radical ideas for different query
languages etc.  One reason for that is that the main find executable needs to
remain fairly small, since it's usually part of the mandatory core of GNU/Liux
systems.

It's an interesting idea though.  I supose this makes a more obvious addition
to "locate" which already has an external database.   

I'm going to mark this bug as "Won't Fix".  Please don't take this as an
outright rejection of your idea.  The thing is we'd need a generic interface
for attaching this kind of extension before we even began to think about it,
and the "right" design for such a plugin interface is not obvious at all.

I'll leave the bug open for a while in case people who stop by the bug
database want to comment (or volunteer...).


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