lid: Querying an ID Database by Token

The `lid' program accepts patterns on the command line which it matches against the tokens stored in an ID database. The interpretation of a pattern is determined by the makeup of the pattern string itself, or can be overridden by command-line options. If a pattern contains regular expression meta-characters, it is used to perform a regular-expression substring search. If no such meta-characters are present, pattern is used to perform a literal word search. (By default, all searches are sensitive to alphabetic case.) If no pattern is supplied on the command line, `lid' lists every entry in the ID database.

`lid' reads the ID database, therefore it accepts the `--file' option, and consults the `IDPATH' environment variable, as described in section Options for Programs that Read ID Databases. `lid' lists file names, therefore it accepts the `--separator' option, as described in section Options for Programs that List File Names.

In addition, lid accepts the following command-line options:

`-i'

`--ignore-case'

Ignoring differences in alphabetic case between the pattern and the tokens in the ID database.

`-l'

`--literal'

Match pattern as a literal string. Use this option if pattern contains regular-expression meta-characters, but you don't wish to perform a regular-expression search.

`-r'

`--regexp'

Match pattern as an extended regular expression(2). Use this option if no regular-expression expression meta-characters are present in pattern, but you wish to force a regular-expression search (note: in this case, a literal substring search might be faster).

`-w'

`--word'

Match pattern using a word-delimited (non substring) search. This is the default for literal searches.

`-s'

`--substring'

Match pattern using a substring (non word-delimited) search. This is the default for regular expression searches.

`-k style'

`--key=style'

Style can be one of `token', `pattern' or `none'. This option controls how the subject of the query is presented. This is best illustrated by example:

$ lid --key=token '^dest.'
destaddr       libsys/memcpy.c
destination    libsys/regex.c
destlst        libsys/rx.c
destpos        libsys/rx.c
destset        libsys/rx.h libsys/rx.c

$ lid --key=pattern '^dest.'
^dest.         libsys/rx.h libsys/{memcpy,regex,rx}.c

$ lid --key=none '^dest.'
libsys/rx.h libsys/{memcpy,regex,rx}.c

When `--key' is either `token' or `pattern', the first column of output is a token or pattern, respectively. When `--key' is `none', neither of these is printed, and the file name list begins immediately. The default is `token'.

`-R style'

`--result=style'

Style can be one of `filenames', `grep', `edit' or `none'. This option controls how the value associated with the query's key presented. When style is `filenames', a list of file names is printed (this is the default). When style is `grep', the lines that match pattern are printed in the same format as `egrep -n'. When style is `edit', the file names are passed to an editor, and if possible pattern is passed as an initial search string (see section eid: Invoking an Editor on Query Results). When style is `none', the file names are not processed in any way. This can be useful if you wish to see what tokens match a pattern, but don't care about where they reside.

`-d'

`-o'

`-x'

These options may be used in any combination to specify the radix of numeric matches. `-d' allows matching on decimal numbers, `-o' on octal numbers, and `-x' on hexadecimal numbers. Any combination of these options may be used. The default is to match all three radixes.

`-F range'

`--frequency=range'

Match tokens whose occurrence count falls in range. Range may be expressed as a single number n, or as a range n..m. Either limit of the range may be omitted (e.g., ..m, or n....). If the lower limit n is omitted, it defaults to 1. If the upper limit is omitted, it defaults in the present implementation to 65535, the maximum value of an unsigned 16-bit integer. Particularly useful queries are `lid -F1', which helps locate identifiers that are defined but never used, or are used but never defined. Similarly, lid -F2 can help find functions that possess a prototype declaration and a definition, but are never called.

`-a number'

`--ambiguous=number'

List identifiers (not numbers) that are ambiguous for the first number characters. This feature might be in useful when porting programs to ancient pea-brained compilers that don't support long identifier names. However, the best long-term option is to set such systems on fire.

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