Philip Brown wrote: > What makes it more confusing, is that (at least for the things I am most > using pkg search for), the required user input, is in opposite order of > output. > > Lacking more explicit documentation, I've been doing some blackbox poking > with inputs, which seems to yield things like the following: > > If i'm searching for things such as pkg:/group/system/solaris-desktop and > related, the strictly correct longer form, would seem to be > > pkg search 'set:pkg.fmri:group/system/*' > > Yet the output line, has opposite order for first two fields. > > INDEX ACTION VALUE > > pkg.fmri set solaris/group/system/solaris/xxxxx > > > Similarly for other things such as filename searches, using the strict, > fuller search syntax, one appears to be expected to use > > pkg search file:basename:zonestat > > Yet this is the exact opposite of default output for the first two columns! > > INDEX ACTION VALUE > basename file usr/bin/zonestat > > > Very confusing to the user. It would be difficult enough to understand, with > documentation on what these "index" vs "action" fields are, and full samples > of each. But we dont have that either, as mentioned previously. > It wouldnt be a big deal, if order of these modifiers was not significant. > Unfortunately, using > > pkg search basename:file:zonestat > > (which to any sane user, would be the 'natural' syntax for them to use, > given the output format) is currently invalid usage. > > Worse of all, it is SILENTLY invalid. It does not throw an error, so the > user has no idea they are doing something "wrong"...
I follow you up to this point. > they would most likely > erroneously assume, "gee, I guess there's no package containing zonestat" > > This is somewhat self correcting, in well known executable names, but can > lead to errors, when users are attempting queries of, "Hmm, I wonder if > solaris has this command yet?". > They will then falsely conclude, "no, it doesnt". Why wouldn't they just run "pkg search zonestat"? It's really supposed to work for simple searches like that. Structured searches are definitely noted as advanced in the man page, and while we don't have an example explicitly searching for a command, or anything specifically saying that you can search for a file or path name (and as I've said, I think we should), I don't see why that wouldn't be the most obvious thing to stuff in to the query argument, if you knew nothing else about how search worked. Danek _______________________________________________ pkg-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/pkg-discuss
