extended-locate.sh

extended-locate.sh

#!/bin/bash

### Requirements:
### - exa
### - ripgrep
### - column
### - updated db for `locate` command (best set up with a cron task)


function main() {
  locations=( $(locate $1) )
  for line in ${locations[@]}; do
    print_line $line
  done
}


## set up env
OLD_IFS=$IFS
IFS=$'\n'
curr_dir=""
new_directory_seperator=$'\n'


## ==== functions ====
function print_line() {
  location=$1
  [ -d $location ] && print_dir  $location
  [ -f $location ] && print_file $location
}

function print_dir() {
  dir_path=$1
  curr_dir=$1

  # NOTE next part might need performance tuning
  printf "$new_directory_seperator"
  exa --long --only-dirs --all --classify --icons --color=always --time-style=long-iso $dir_path/../$(basename $dir_path) | awk -F ' ' -v var=$dir_path '{$7=var; print}'
}

function print_file() {
  file_path=$1
  file_dir=$( dirname $file_path )

  if [[ "$curr_dir" == "" ]]; then 
    curr_dir=$file_dir
  fi

  if [[ "$curr_dir" != "$file_dir" ]]; then
    curr_dir=$file_dir
    printf "$new_directory_seperator"
  fi

  exa --long --all --classify --icons --color=always --time-style=long-iso $file_path
}
## ==================


## ==== execute =====
# main "$@" | column -te # TODO add this option as a command line argument. In the meantime, use it in an alias.
main "$@" 
## ==================

## restore env
IFS=$OLD_IFS

If you want the most barebones version of this, you can replace the dependencies like so:

• rg → grep
• exa ... → ls -l

I don't know about any alternative for unbuffer, but you can remove it (and lose the color-coded results)
The same goes for column