microsoft / microsoft/winget-cli

Allow multiple search terms in "winget search" where matches would've had to match all terms.

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Issue-Feature
Dominant language
C++
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Description

Relevant area(s)

WinGet CLI

Description of the new feature / enhancement

As of v1.12.350, Winget is (as far as I can tell) unable to support multiple terms in a single search, despite that general web search engines have been able to handle such for some 20 years now. So it shouldn't be impossible to have Winget support it too.

This would greatly help with more detailed searches. Someone searching for virtual machine programs, thinking of the "vm" shorthand and searching winget search vm would get around 130 results (many of them unrelated to virtual machines), while something like winget search "vm" "drive" would narrow it down faster.

Proposed technical implementation details

Make at least one of the following commands be able to find packages that match all terms (Micro + Soft is simply an example):

  • winget search "micro" "soft"
  • winget search "micro"+"soft"
  • winget search "micro""soft"
  • winget -q micro -q soft
  • winget search micro/soft

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start with the WinGet CLI search command and trace how it currently handles a single search term. Compare the proposed command forms and define one that matches packages against all supplied terms; done means a multi-term search narrows results as requested.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
cpp
Domain
cli, search
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
48/100

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