Query your Google Drive with a Go command-line tool
Programming Snapshot – Google Drive Search Tool
© Lead Image © Alphaspirit, 123RF.com
To help him check his Google Drive files with three different pattern matchers, Mike builds a command-line tool in Go to maintain a meta cache.
My digital library of scanned paper books is stashed away as PDF files in an account on Google Drive. So far, Google has done an exemplary job of keeping my data available, but I just can't make friends with their search interface. In typical Google style, the browser shows you a search field that can be used to quickly browse the indexed full text of all the files in all the folders. However, getting a simple answer to the question of whether I already have a certain book in my archive is more difficult. To do this, I have to select the file names only and restrict the search to specific folders.
Fortunately, though, Google provides an intuitive API [1] to access user data in the Google Drive cloud. For quick checks, a command-line tool comes in handy. While we're at it, it's worth taking a trip into the world of pattern matchers, of which there are, as we all know, a wide variety. For example, the shell relies on a glob mechanism for matching, while programming languages typically rely on regular expressions (regexes). And sometimes, a simple string matcher like the grep command is the most practical solution.
Parallel Regex Worlds
If you type ls *.jpg on the command line, you expect the shell's match mechanism to find all files with a .jpg extension. This pattern matching is fundamentally different from Perl Compatible Regular Expressions (PCRE) [2] used in programming languages. Funnily enough, they originated with the Perl scripting language many years ago, but all modern languages from Python to Java and C++ to Go support them as well.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
TuxCare Announces Support for AlmaLinux 9.2
Thanks to TuxCare, AlmaLinux 9.2 (and soon version 9.6) now enjoys years of ongoing patching and compliance.
-
Go-Based Botnet Attacking IoT Devices
Using an SSH credential brute-force attack, the Go-based PumaBot is exploiting IoT devices everywhere.
-
Plasma 6.5 Promises Better Memory Optimization
With the stable Plasma 6.4 on the horizon, KDE has a few new tricks up its sleeve for Plasma 6.5.
-
KaOS 2025.05 Officially Qt5 Free
If you're a fan of independent Linux distributions, the team behind KaOS is proud to announce the latest iteration that includes kernel 6.14 and KDE's Plasma 6.3.5.
-
Linux Kernel 6.15 Now Available
The latest Linux kernel is now available with several new features/improvements and the usual bug fixes.
-
Microsoft Makes Surprising WSL Announcement
In a move that might surprise some users, Microsoft has made Windows Subsystem for Linux open source.
-
Red Hat Releases RHEL 10 Early
Red Hat quietly rolled out the official release of RHEL 10.0 a bit early.
-
openSUSE Joins End of 10
openSUSE has decided to not only join the End of 10 movement but it also will no longer support the Deepin Desktop Environment.
-
New Version of Flatpak Released
Flatpak 1.16.1 is now available as the latest, stable version with various improvements.
-
IBM Announces Powerhouse Linux Server
IBM has unleashed a seriously powerful Linux server with the LinuxONE Emperor 5.