NAME
lookup - search the internet from your terminal
VERSION
lookup version 0.01
USAGE
lookup [--help] [--man] [--abbrevs] [--config-file FILE] [--sites]
[--web-browser COMMAND] [--abbrevs] SITE QUERYEXAMPLE
# search google for the phrase 'perl is pretty awesome'
lookup google 'perl is pretty awesome'
# same thing, with abbreviated SITE g (or go, or goo, or goog
# or ... you get the idea)
lookup g 'perl is pretty awesome'
# ditto, but arguments to QUERY are not quoted
lookup google perl is pretty awesomeDESCRIPTION
This is a simple command line program which lets you search the internet from the terminal. It's not exactly the most original idea out there. I personally have used various programs which pretty much do the same thing, (most of these even offer better user interface): custom web search feature in Firefox, similar feature in Quicksilver and Launchy, a fairly sophisticated command line program called googlecl, and an emacs lisp library called webjump.
But this raises quiet a few problems, namely:
The inability to share my own custom sites defined in one program with another.
Some programs are tied to a specific platform, e.g. Quicksilver on OSX, Launchy on Windows, and webjump on emacs :p. See also: problem #1.
This program offers a simple solution to said problems. It uses a plain text file configuration which you can use to add your own custom sites (and aliases, but more on that later). You can also use it to interface with other programs, see the section "INTEGRATION WITH EMACS" for an example.
By default you're only able to search with google. You can search with more sites by putting the following in the file ~/.lookuprc (see "CONFIGURATION FILE").
[sites]
bing = http://www.bing.com/search?q=%(query)Assuming that's the only thing you put in the config file (to make sure that the abbreviations don't clash), you'll be able to search with bing with either one of the following commands:
lookup bing foobar
lookup bin foobar
lookup bi foobar
lookup b foobarOPTIONS
REQUIRED
- SITE
-
The site name, which can be abbreviated as long as the name remains unique.
- QUERY
-
The query string. For convenience, the arguments do not have to be quoted/protected from the shell since the rest of the arguments (after SITE) are assumed to be the query string and eventually will be joined with the space character. These two commands work exactly the same:
lookup google 'foo bar baz'vs
lookup google foo bar baz
OPTIONAL
- -h, --help
-
Print short help message and exit.
- -m, --man
-
Print the full documentation and exit. Make sure to read this document if you want to add your own sites or aliases.
- -v, --version
-
Print this program version and exit.
- -c, --config-file FILE
-
Use a different configuration file. Default location is ~/.lookuprc.
- -a, --abbrevs
-
List all sites with their valid abbreviations and exit.
- -s, --sites
-
List all site names with their corresponding url and exit.
- -w, --web-browser COMMAND
-
Specify a different command to run the web browser. By default this program uses whatever command does the module Browser::Open return to open the web browser. You can use this option to specify other command to execute.
NOTE: if you're using cygwin, you currently must specify this option (see "CAVEATS, BUGS AND TODOS").
lookup google foo -w 'cygstart'Other example:
lookup google foo -w 'open -a Safari'On OSX, the above command will make this program use the application
Safari(obviously it won't work on other platforms).
CONFIGURATION FILE
You can manage user-defined sites and their aliases by putting the information in the configuration file, by default located at ~/.lookuprc (although you can change it with the option --config-file).
It uses the ubiquitous INI file syntax. Sites information should be put under the heading called [sites] and aliases under the heading [alias]. Lines that are starting with the characters # or ; are ignored. Whitespace in either the key or the value is legal.
SITES
The section [sites] is where we defined our own sites. Each item contains a pair of key and value, where the key is the name of the site, and the value is the url. For example:
[sites]
metacpan = https://metacpan.org/search?q=%(query)This add a new site called metacpan which is associated with the url https://metacpan.org/search?q=%(query). The string %(query) will be replaced with the query string supplied to the option QUERY.
ALIASES
Aliases let us shorten the site name, where the key is the alias name and the value is an already existing site name (this program will print a warning message if you specify an alias that doesn't point to a valid site).
Continuing from the previous example, we can shorten the name metacpan into m by putting the following lines in the configuration file:
[alias]
m = metacpanNow we can search for module called Some::Module on metacpan by invoking the command:
lookup m Some::ModuleEXAMPLE OF CONFIGURATION FILE
Here's an example of configuration file, feel free to use it as a starting point.
[sites]
duckduckgo = http://duckduckgo.com/?q=%(query)
emacswiki = http://google.com/search?q=site:emacswiki.org %(query)
github = https://github.com/search?q=%(query)
google lucky = http://google.com/search?btnI=1&q=%(query)
imdb = http://www.imdb.com/find?q=%(query)
metacpan = https://metacpan.org/search?q=%(query)
perldoc = http://perldoc.perl.org/search.html?q=%(query)
search cpan = http://search.cpan.org/search?query=%(query)&mode=all
wikipedia = http://en.wikipedia.org/?search=%(query)
youtube = http://www.youtube.com/results?q=%(query)
[alias]
ddg = duckduckgo
g = google
lucky = google lucky
wi = wikipedia
y = youtubeEXTRAS
INTEGRATION WITH EMACS
Short demo <http://i.minus.com/inRg3aL2wGGQ5.gif>.
This is my preferred way of using this program, so I guess bit makes sense that this section is a bit long (mostly filled with emacs lisp code). You can safely ignore this section if you don't use emacs.
(require 'thingatpt)
(defgroup lookup nil
"Run the command lookup"
:prefix "lookup-"
:group 'tools
:group 'processes)
(defcustom lookup-command "lookup"
"The lookup command.
If you're using cygwin, you should modify this variable like so
(see the CAVEATS section in lookup documentation):
(when (eq 'system-type 'cygwin)
(setq lookup-command \"lookup -w 'cygstart'\"))"
:group 'lookup :type 'string)
(defcustom lookup-prompt-function
(if (fboundp 'ido-completing-read)
'ido-completing-read
'completing-read)
"The function used to prompt user for lookup sites")
(defcustom lookup-sites-mode-alist nil
"Alist mapping major-modes to their associated sites.
Each cons cell in this alist contains the name of the major-mode
as the associated key and the name of the sites (multiple sites
are accepted) as the associated value.
For example, to associate `ruby-mode' with the sites rubygems and
ruby-doc (assuming both sites are defined in the configuration
file ~/.lookuprc):
(add-to-list 'lookup-sites-mode-alist '(ruby-mode \"rubygems\" \"ruby-doc\")"
:group 'lookup :type 'alist)
(defvar lookup-hist nil
"History of previous queries to the command lookup")
(defvar lookup-sites-cache nil
"Store the list of sites accepted by lookup")
(defun lookup--get-sites (&optional recache)
"Get a list of sites accepted by lookup by returning the value of variable `lookup-sites-cache'.
If it's not been set yet (or if the optional argument RECACHE is
non-nil), set its value by parsing the output of the command
`lookup --sites'"
(when (or recache
(not lookup-sites-cache))
(message "Please wait, caching sites...")
(let ((output (shell-command-to-string
(format "%s --sites" lookup-command)))
sites)
(with-temp-buffer
(insert output)
(sort-lines t (point-min) (point-max))
(goto-char (point-min))
(while (re-search-forward "^- \\(.+\\)\s+:" nil t)
(push (match-string 1) sites)))
;; TODO: make the regexp above less stupid, so we don't have to strip
;; the trailing whitespace
(setq lookup-sites-cache (mapcar
(lambda (site)
(replace-regexp-in-string
"\s*$" "" site))
sites))))
lookup-sites-cache)
(defun lookup--prompt-for-query (&optional site)
"Prompt user for query argument to the command lookup.
The prompt message is adjusted depending on the existence of
symbol under point and whether the argument SITE is supplied or
not."
(let* ((word (thing-at-point 'symbol))
(query (read-string
(cond ((and word site)
(format "Query %s (default %s): " site word))
(site
(format "Query %s: " site))
(word
(format "Query (default %s): " word))
(t
"Query: "))
nil 'lookup-hist word)))
(when (string= "" query)
(error "The query can not be empty"))
query))
(defvar lookup-sites-hist nil
"History of previously searched sites")
(defun lookup--prompt-for-sites (sites)
(funcall lookup-prompt-function "Site: " sites nil t nil 'lookup-sites-hist))
(defun lookup-quick ()
"Call `lookup' with predefined sites based on current `major-mode'.
This command will complain if current `major-mode' is not
associated with any sites (see the variable
`lookup-sites-mode-alist' on how to associate a major-mode with
lookup sites)"
(interactive)
(let ((possible-sites (cdr (assoc major-mode lookup-sites-mode-alist)))
query sitename)
(unless possible-sites
(error "%s is not associated with any site" major-mode))
(setq sitename
(if (> (length possible-sites) 1)
(lookup--prompt-for-sites possible-sites)
(car possible-sites)))
(setq query (lookup--prompt-for-query sitename))
(lookup sitename query)))
(defun lookup (sitename query &optional recache)
"Interact with the program lookup within emacs.
SITENAME and QUERY will be passed to lookup as its command line
arguments.
When used interactively, prompt user the list of available sites
for SITENAME and the query string QUERY (defaults to word at
point). With one prefix-arg (the argument RECACHE if called from
lisp), recache the sites first."
(interactive
(let ((sites (lookup--get-sites current-prefix-arg)))
(list
(lookup--prompt-for-sites sites)
(lookup--prompt-for-query)
current-prefix-arg)))
(shell-command
(format "%s '%s' %s" lookup-command sitename query)))Evaluate it, and optionally assign the command lookup and lookup-quick to handy keybindings:
;; mnemonic: w for web, (yes, the command "lookup-quick" uses the capital
;; "w")
(global-set-key (kbd "C-c w") 'lookup)
(global-set-key (kbd "C-c W") 'lookup-quick)CAVEATS, BUGS, AND TODOS
Opening web browser in cygwin does not work
Due to this bug in Browser::Open.
AUTHOR
Ahmad Syaltut <Isyaltut@gmail.com>