# Announcing the fpm-find plugin for searching fortran-lang's package index

**URL:** <https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/announcing-the-fpm-find-plugin-for-searching-fortran-langs-package-index/11047>\
**Category:** Announcements\
**Created:** [August 11, 2026, 7:15pm UTC](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/announcing-the-fpm-find-plugin-for-searching-fortran-langs-package-index/11047 "2026-08-11T19:15:55Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![rouson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ce7236/32.png) [@rouson](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/u/rouson)\
**Post date:** [August 11, 2026, 7:15pm UTC](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/announcing-the-fpm-find-plugin-for-searching-fortran-langs-package-index/11047/1 "2026-08-11T19:15:55Z")

</div>

Today I made the first public release of the `fpm` plugin [fpm-find](https://go.lbl.gov/fpm-find) 0.1.0. Weighing in at 765 lines, including unit tests, it’s a minimal viable product that takes advantage of the simple structure of fortran-lang’s `package_index.yml` file so that a complete YAML parser is not required as long as certain properties of the file stay the same, which hopefully is a safe bet now that the package index has grown to include over 260 packages.

Many thanks to @bonachea for inspiring this by pointing me to the package index, to @jwallwork23 for helpful discussions about the index, to @milancurcic for suggesting making this tool an fpm plugin, and to @certik for additional encouragement!

The structure of an `fpm-find` command is as follows:

```auto
fpm find <search-string> [--url|-u] [--name|-n] [--case|-c]

```

where users replace `<search-string>` with text to find in the package index. The remaining arguments are optional and can be used in any combination. Examples follow:

```auto
fpm find numerical # search all package data for "numerical"
fpm find julienne --name # search package names for "julienne"
fpm find nasa --url --name # search package names and URLs for "nasa"
fpm find Berkeley -u -c # case-sensitive search for "Berkeley" in package URLs

```

I imagine that `fpm-find`’s relationship to the package index is analogous to the `fpm-search` plugin’s relationship to the `fpm` registry so some might view `fpm-find` as redundant. [](https://github.com/fortran-lang/fpm/issues/1148)I submitted `fpm` [issue #1148](https://github.com/fortran-lang/fpm/issues/1148) in May 2025 describing my unsuccessful attempts to use the registry.

Also, I imagine `fpm-find` could eventually be absorbed into `fpm` to take advantage of additional infrastructure (e.g., Windows support) and to enable new functionality (e.g., enabling `fpm install <package-name>` to function similar to other package managers except that it would build from source. Incorporation into `fpm` might make a good Google Summer of Code project for someone. In order to facilitate that possible outcome, I asked my employer to apply an MIT license like `fpm`. Fortunately, our Intellectual Property Office honored my request.

Although I can’t promise a lot of time for maintenance, feedback is welcome via GitHub issues. Contributions via pull requests are especially welcome. I’d be happy to give an introduction to the internals of `fpm-find` to anyone interested in contributing.