Bug with consult-fd: error: Found argument '--and' which wasn't expected, or isn't valid in this context

[hab25]

Environment: emacs 29.3, consult 1.7, fd 10.1.0

Reproduce by evaluating in emacs -Q:

(progn
  (require 'consult)
  (minibuffer-with-setup-hook
      (apply-partially #'insert "foo")
    (consult-fd)))

And seeing that error: Found argument '--and' which wasn't expected, or isn't valid in this context appears in the minibuffer and in the *Messages* buffer.

[minad]

Hi! This problem is caused if your fd version is too old.

[minad]

I don't know. For me consult-fd works properly with multiple inputs. I also have version 10.something. Maybe you've adjusted the consult-fd-args?

[hab25]

Maybe you've adjusted the consult-fd-args?

No, I've reproduced it emacs -Q and evaluating only the above code.

---

Another test we can compare:

Again in emacs -Q, I did (debug-on-entry #'consult--async-log), then called #'consult-fd, inputted the string "bar", and the debugger landed on the following:

consult--async-log("consult--async-process started %S\n" ("fdfind" "--full-path" "--color=never" "--and" "bar" "."))

Then, on the command line of my terminal (outside of Emacs), I invoked fdfind --full-path --color=never --and bar . and got the same error:
error: Found argument '--and' which wasn't expected, or isn't valid in this context

[minad]

Then, on the command line of my terminal (outside of Emacs), I invoked fdfind --full-path --color=never --and bar . and got the same error:
error: Found argument '--and' which wasn't expected, or isn't valid in this context

Yes, this means that your version of fd is not supported. This command line works on my setup, version 9.0.0. It could be that fd 10.0 got more strict regarding the usage of the --and argument. But I haven't found anything in the change log. See also this problem: e201af1

If you have time you could test various fd versions and check how the command line should be organized, such that we can pass multiple patterns and such that patterns are not confused with options or file names.

[maxecharel]

Hi! For what it's worth, I encountered the same error message as the one encountered by @hab25. In my case, the problem was due to what @minad suggested, i.e. that the version of fd was too old (8.3.1, package fd-find). I installed a newer pre-packaged (.deb) version (9.0.0), and it solved the issue.

@hab25, I may be completely wrong, but is it possible that the implementation of fd called by consult-fd is actually not the one that corresponds to the output of fd --version? On some Debian-based distros, the package available on the official repos is fd-find and the related command is fdfind, not fd. Could it be that two versions --- e.g. an old fdfind from the official repos and a fd that you built --- coexist on your current system and that consult-fd actually calls fdfind while you would like it to call fd?

I am not sure that's even possible and I don't know whether you use a Debian-based distro, but let's hope that sharing these thoughts can help.

[hab25]

@maxecharel that is indeed the cause; impressive guess; thanks!

The solution I went with, because my distro (pop os 22.04) has the fdfind binary as a dependency of the desktop environment and I shouldn't uninstall it, was to "substitute" (i.e. via setopt) https://github.com/minad/consult/blob/3d0fc6a8c6a74b21ca854b8632b3f58e0e513b85/consult.el#L291C5-L291C58 with "fd" (which I have installed through the nix package manager).

[maxecharel]

hi @hab25, glad it helped!