Re: [Bug] lei: extra quotes inserted into query with AND/OR

[Eric Wong <e@80x24.org>]

Henrik Grimler <henrik@grimler.se> wrote:
> Hi Eric,
> 
> On Sun, Nov 12, 2023 at 12:10:50AM +0000, Eric Wong wrote:
> > Henrik Grimler <henrik@grimler.se> wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > > 
> > > I recently found out about lei and installed it through archlinux's
> > > package manager and am trying out queries. When using AND/OR extra
> > > quotes are inserted in the curl command which messes it up, for
> > > example:
> > > 
> > > $ lei q -I https://lore.kernel.org/all/ -o ~/mail/foo 'dfn:COPYING OR dfn:Makefile'
> > > # /home/grimler/.local/share/lei/store 0/0
> > > # /usr/bin/curl -Sf -s -d '' https://lore.kernel.org/all/?x=m&q=dfn%3A%22COPYING+OR+dfn%3AMakefile%22
> > > # 0 written to /home/grimler/mail/foo/ (0 matches)
> > > 
> > > where it can be seen that it tries to search for 'dfn:"COPYING OR
> > > dfn:Makefile"', and no hits are returned since there is no file named
> > > "COPYING OR dfn:Makefile".
> > 
> > Don't use quotes unless you want a phrase search.
> 
> The quotes are added by lei (or some dependency) when query contains
> space. Happens also if I search for a single file:
>   lei q -I https://lore.kernel.org/all/ -o ~/mail/foo ' dfn:COPYING'
> which results in this curl cmd:
>   /usr/bin/curl -Sf -s -d '' https://lore.kernel.org/all/?x=m&q=+dfn%3A%22COPYING%22
> where %22 then is "

Right, spaces require quotes in sh and lei inserts quotes when
it sees spaces assuming it's a phrase search.  Most queries
involving filenames don't have spaces, and your original query
shouldn't have spaces.  It's 3 separate args in @argv of
`lei_q': [ "dfn:COPYING", "OR", "dfn:Makefile" ]

In other words, no quotes or spaces are needed in your case at all:

$ lei q dfn:COPYING OR dfn:Makefile
(I've omitted the -I and -o args for brevity)

Your original query only passes 1 arg due to single or double quotes
handled in the shell (assuming POSIX-like sh or bash):

$ lei q 'dfn:COPYING OR dfn:Makefile' # don't do this
$ lei q "dfn:COPYING OR dfn:Makefile" # don't do this, either

In both cases the `lei_q' subroutine would only see
[ "dfn:COPYING OR dfn:Makefile" ] in its @argv.

If you have odd cases where you really need spaces in a single
token and maybe not phrase search, --stdin can probably get what
you want more reliably:

$ echo 'dfn:"some filename with spaces" AND something.else' | lei q --stdin

Hope that helps.