Send the results back to Emacs in a dired/grep buffer

[maxecharel]

Hi @eval-exec! Thanks a lot (again) for this package; as previously mentioned on Reddit and in a previous issue, it is super useful for externalizing some demanding find/grep tasks that would possibly put too much burden on Emacs thread (hello ripgrep-all).
If I may, I would like to kindly ask for an additional functionality: being able to send back to Emacs the results of a search, as a dired/grep buffer. Do you think that something you could (and want to) implement?

[eval-exec]

Hello, @maxecharel
Do you mean something like this?

Starting eee.el in Emacs, which in turn launches a third-party terminal emulator. Inside the terminal emulator, it runs a command similar to ripgrep or find, then sends the command output back to Emacs, displaying the results in a buffer.

I think this is achievable.

It would likely require defining a custom callback function. In the callback, Emacs could create a buffer and insert the command output from eee.el into that buffer:

eee.el/eee.el

Lines 194 to 206 in dce7135

	(defmacro ee-define (name working-directory script-path &optional args callback)
	"Define a command with NAME to run a script with EE-RUN.
	WORKING-DIRECTORY determines the directory to run the script from.
	SCRIPT-PATH is the full path to the script to run.
	ARGS are optional arguments for the script.
	CALLBACK is an optional callback to be called after the script runs."
	`(defun ,(intern name) (&optional _arg)
	(interactive "P")
	(ee-run ,name
	,working-directory
	,script-path
	,args
	',callback)))

[eval-exec]

Do you think that something you could (and want to) implement?

Yes, for example:

;; write a custom callback function to create a buffer in Emacs, and write something into the buffer:
(defun ee-export-to-buffer (destination-file)
  "Export the contents of DESTINATION-FILE to a new buffer."
  (let* ((destination (shell-command-to-string
						(format "cat %s" destination-file)))
		  (destination (string-trim destination)))
	;; Create a new buffer and insert the content
	(with-current-buffer (get-buffer-create "*Export Output*")
	  (erase-buffer)
	  (insert destination)
	  (goto-char (point-min))
	  (display-buffer (current-buffer)))))

;; then use ee-define to create a new "ee" command:
(ee-define "ee-rg-and-export-to-buffer" default-directory (ee-script-path "eee-rg.sh") nil ee-export-to-buffer)

Note: I weite above code by hand, not tested it. you may need to test it. Thank you.

[maxecharel]

Waouw, thanks for the reactivity! I tested the code (just added a call to grep-mode at the end) and yes, that is the spirit. But I was more specifically thinking about a way to export all matches to a grep (or dired, if using find or fd) buffer instead of just the match at point in the third-party terminal emulator, in the spirit of what I get when calling empark-export from e.g. consult-ripgrep. Do you think that would induce a substantial additional effort?

[maxecharel]

(In other words, to be able to do exactly what the combination consult-ripgrep -- that shows the matches in the minibuffer -- and embark-export -- that exports all the matches to a grep buffer -- does, but having the search and export performed via eee.el instead of respectively consult-ripgrep and embark-export)