Re: searching elisp on debian/ubuntu

[Michael Heerdegen]

Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> writes:

> [This is more about debian ubuntu than emacs]
>
> When looking for something in elisp on debian/ubuntu there is the
> nuisance that the files are gzipped.  So Ive to do things like
>
> find /usr/share/emacs/23.4/lisp *.gz|xargs zgrep <something>
>
> because zgrep unlike grep has no recursive flag
>
> I believe that there is some dpkg/apt flag that says keep the files
> unzipped.
>
> Anyone know of it?

No.  But you can nonetheless search from Emacs, e.g. with

- color-moccur.el.  M-x dired any directory, and do M-x dired-do-moccur.
  Works out of the box.  Uncompresses files on the fly when
  appropriate.  It's recursive.

- Icicles:  Use the Icicles search commands, they also work for
  compressed files.

- Helm:  Use a prefix arg for `helm-ff-run-zgrep' from
  `helm-find-files'.

Sorry for all I forgot to mention.


Regards,

Michael.