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# Squozen
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This crate contains a library for *reading* the Squozen database format, the
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original format used to store the database for the Unix `locate` command.
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## The format
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It's important to remember that the Squozen format was formalized in 1983; at
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the time, the Unix filesystem handled only the characters between 0x00 and 0x7f
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(0-127), filesystems were much smaller, the convention of short paths such as
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`/usr` and `/etc` and eight-character-dot-three-character filenames were in
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force. As such, the use of bigrams, the topmost bit as a sentinel, and the
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likelihood that each paths would deviate from its prior by less than 14
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characters was sensible.
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The Squozen format consists of a 256-long block that encompasses the 128 most
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common bigrams (two-letter sequences) that appear in the database, followed by a
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stream that has the following characteristics:
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A leading byte. If the byte is the RS symbol (Record Separator, ASCII 30), the
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next two bytes represent a 16-bit a number; if not, the byte itself is treated
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as a 8-bit integer. This integer represents the number of characters from the
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preceding read (and must be zero if this is the first read!) that can be re-used
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in the current iteration. The starting pointer for inserts is moved to that
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position.
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As the byte stream is read, if the uppermost bit is set, the remaining 7-bits
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are treated as a look up into the bigram table, the two bytes of which are
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inserted into the result buffer, otherwise the character encountered is inserted
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into the result buffer. This read terminates when a character equal to or less
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than the RS symbol is encountered. That character is preserved for the next
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read.
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## Analysis
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Before reading the database, a substring of the pattern requested for matching
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is extracted. This substring contains no wildcards or other glob special
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characters.
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When a result buffer is produced, the analysis starts from the *end* of the
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results buffer, comparing it to the prepared pattern. If it finds the last
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character of the prepared pattern, it starts a backward analysis, stopping only
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when comparison either fails or we reach the beginning of the prepared pattern.
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If the comparison fails, the analysis resumes again until we run out of string
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to compare. If it suceeds, we compare the whole pattern to the string using
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`fnmatch()`, and print the result if that comparison succeeds.
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If the comparison fails, we also record that it did, and establish that
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analyzing any part of the path *prior* to that marker is unnecessary, since the
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comparison failed to find anything within it.
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Analysis continues until the stream is exhausted.
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## The C implementation
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The C implementation wraps this entirely in one function, re-using string
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buffers and pointers with abandon. The 1983 C compilers had no notion of
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variable shadowing or scoping; it just did what you told it to without ever
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questioning your decisions. It's only 39 lines long and does all the work in
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that space. It also never uses more than 2KB of memory, and 130 bytes of that
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are the copyright notice!
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## The Rust implementation
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### Prepare Pattern
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The Rust implementation is a little more modern, and uses a bit more memory of
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course, but it's the same algorithm. The pattern preparer, which extracts the
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"non-glob" portion of the pattern to make base comparisons faster returns a
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''Vec'' rather than re-using a global array of 128 bytes. I also identified
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three places in the original code that performed the same action: "from a
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starting point, scan backwards until this function is satified or the array is
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exhausted." I've abstracted that out into a local function that takes the
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predicate as a closure.
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### Squozen
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The implementation of Squozen itself is broken up into three phases. When the
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Squozen struct is instantiated with the path to the database, the bigram table
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is read in, but only the bigram table and the path are stored.
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The implementation of the Squozen database has two methods: ''paths()'' and
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''matches(pattern)''. ''paths()'' opens the database and returns an iterator,
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which begins reading it, uncompressing it according to the algorithm described
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above, and returning a read-only reference to an internal byte slice where the
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uncompressed results are stored.
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''matches(pattern)'' performs the pattern preparation and then wraps
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''paths()'', returning only those strings that match the pattern, again using
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the read-only reference to the internal array presented by ''paths()''.
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Each invocation of ''paths()'' (or the ''matches(pattern)'' wrapper) creates a
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new instance of the file reader, which is buffered, as well as the return slice.
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Multiple threads can be reading different instances at the same time, although I
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imagine some filesystem thrashing is likely if you have more than two or three.
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The scanner is pretty fast!
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