Code search in Emacs

  |   Source

After shutdown of Google Code Search, I turned to plain google search instead.

For example, if I want to search Emacs Lisp code. I google "keyword filetype:el".

"el" is the file extension of Emacs Lisp file.

Since I use Emacs for everything, it's natural to search code in Emacs.

So here is my solution.

Step 1, install w3m and its Emacs wrapper.

Step 2, insert below code into ~/.emacs: 

(defun w3m-get-url-from-search-engine-alist (k l)
  (let (rlt)
    (if (listp l)
      (if (string= k (caar l))
          (setq rlt (nth 1 (car l)))
        (setq rlt (w3m-get-url-from-search-engine-alist k (cdr l)))))
    rlt))

(defun w3m-set-url-from-search-engine-alist (k l url)
    (if (listp l)
      (if (string= k (caar l))
          (setcdr (car l) (list url))
        (w3m-set-url-from-search-engine-alist k (cdr l) url))))

;; C-u S g RET <search term> RET in w3m
(setq w3m-search-engine-alist
      '(("g" "http://www.google.com.au/search?q=%s" utf-8)
        ;; stackoverflow search
        ("q" "http://www.google.com.au/search?q=%s+site:stackoverflow.com" utf-8)
        ;; elisp code search
        ("s" "http://www.google.com.au/search?q=%s+filetype:el"  utf-8)
        ;; wikipedia
        ("w" "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=%s" utf-8)
        ;; online dictionary
        ("d" "http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=%s" utf-8)
        ;; javascript search on mozilla.org
        ("j" "http://www.google.com.au/search?q=%s+site:developer.mozilla.org" utf-8)))

(defun w3m-google-by-filetype ()
  (interactive)
  (unless (featurep 'w3m)
    (require 'w3m))
  (let ((thing (if (region-active-p)
                   (buffer-substring-no-properties (region-beginning) (region-end))
                 (thing-at-point 'symbol)))
        (old-url (w3m-get-url-from-search-engine-alist "s" w3m-search-engine-alist))
        new-url)
    (when buffer-file-name
      (setq new-url (replace-regexp-in-string
                     "filetype:.*"
                     (concat "filetype:" (file-name-extension buffer-file-name))
                     old-url))
      (w3m-set-url-from-search-engine-alist "s" w3m-search-engine-alist new-url))
    ;; change the url to search current file type
    (w3m-search "s" thing)
    ;; restore the default url
    (w3m-set-url-from-search-engine-alist "s" w3m-search-engine-alist old-url)))

Step 3, `M-x w3m-google-by-filetype`. Either the selected region or the symbol under cursor will be searched.

Comments powered by Disqus