5. Search query model

5.1. Definitions

program query selector

The empty query selector which only selects command snippets that call the program name given as query selector value. For example, :dd will restrict the selection to snippets containing reference to the dd program.

query literal

The query answer will try to match any one of those provided literals. Such a literal has the shape of any word that is not composed of special characters with the exception of - and _.

query selector

It constrains the scope of the current query. Such a selector has the form of two words separated with the : character. The first, optional word is the operator (what is selected) and the second word is the value. When the operator is omitted, the program selector is processed.

[OPERATOR]:VALUE

5.2. Syntax

Note

The program internal string representations are in utf-8 and I/O operation will be transcoded to the environement encoding. See Character encoding.

Note

This is a normalized syntax. If the user inputs forbidden characters, they shall be stripped out.

Note

See the Shared definitions for ABNF grammars section for the depending token definitions.

Listing 5.1 Query formal ABNF syntax definition

SELECTOR-CHAR            = ALPHA / DIGIT / HYPHEN / UNDERSCORE
                         ; ASCII alphanum character or hyphen or underscore
LITERAL-CHAR             = UTF8-2 / UTF8-3 / UTF8-4 / ALPHA / DIGIT / HYPHEN / UNDERSCORE
                         ; UTF-8 alphanum character or hyphen or underscore
LITERAL                  = 1*(LITERAL-CHAR)
                         ; A literal is a sequence of non-special, non-whitespace characters
                         ; or hyphen or underscore
SELECTOR-OPERATOR        = 1*(SELECTOR-CHAR)
SELECTOR-VALUE           = 1*(SELECTOR-CHAR)
SELECTOR                 = *(SELECTOR-OPERATOR) COLON SELECTOR-VALUE
                         ; A selector is a sequence of non-special, non-whitespace
                         ; ASCII characters or hyphen or underscore, preceded with a colon
QUERY-WORD               = SELECTOR / LITERAL
QUERY                    = QUERY-WORD / (QUERY-WORD WSP-SEQUENCE QUERY)

5.3. List of selectors

to be written

5.4. Search sort requirements

Result By Relevance

Results should be sorted by relevance.

Relevance Composition

Relevance should be a composition of

• string matching in snippet description
• snippet popularity
• snippet reputation