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
-
Kali Linux 2025.3 Released with New Hacking Tools
If you're a Kali Linux fan, you'll be glad to know that the third release of this famous pen-testing distribution is now available with updates for key components.
-
Zorin OS 18 Beta Available for Testing
The latest release from the team behind Zorin OS is ready for public testing, and it includes plenty of improvements to make it more powerful, user-friendly, and productive.
-
Fedora Linux 43 Beta Now Available for Testing
Fedora Linux 43 Beta ships with Gnome 49 and KDE Plasma 6.4 (and other goodies).
-
USB4 Maintainer Leaves Intel
Michael Jamet, one of the primary maintainers of USB4 and Thunderbolt drivers, has left Intel, leaving a gaping hole for the Linux community to deal with.
-
Budgie 10.9.3 Now Available
The latest version of this elegant and configurable Linux desktop aligns with changes in Gnome 49.
-
KDE Linux Alpha Available for Daring Users
It's official, KDE Linux has arrived, but it's not quite ready for prime time.
-
AMD Initiates Graphics Driver Updates for Linux Kernel 6.18
This new AMD update focuses on power management, display handling, and hardware support for Radeon GPUs.
-
AerynOS Alpha Release Available
With a choice of several desktop environments, AerynOS 2025.08 is almost ready to be your next operating system.
-
AUR Repository Still Under DDoS Attack
Arch User Repository continues to be under a DDoS attack that has been going on for more than two weeks.
-
RingReaper Malware Poses Danger to Linux Systems
A new kind of malware exploits modern Linux kernels for I/O operations.