5 ms·

After reading this I'm reminded that if an IDE just supported replacing highlighted text after it was piped through a command it would have a lot going for it.

After reading this I'm reminded that if an IDE just supported replacing highlighted text after it was piped through a command it would have a lot going for it. A lot of these are features some that IDEs have been lacking for years yet they've been hiding away in /bin.

tambourine_man 10y ago
FWIW, you can do that in Vim. Select text then: :'<,'>!command
- my_ghola 10y ago
  And `%!command` to replace the whole file. That's how editing hexadecimal in vim works. `%!xxd` to turn it, then `%!xxd -r` to turn it back. Another useful one is `%!jq .` to pretty print a json file.
  - susam 10y ago
    I use this often. I usually enter `:%!xxd -g1` to show each byte value separately instead of showing two bytes together. $ printf "\x00\x01\x02\x03" | xxd 0000000: 0001 0203 $ printf "\x00\x01\x02\x03" | xxd -g1 0000000: 00 01 02 03 While editing binary files in Vim, one needs to be careful about setting the binary option before editing a binary file or opening the binary file with `-b` option. For example, printf "\x00\x01\x02\x03" > a.bin vim a.bin :%!xxd -g1 would display 0000000: 00 01 02 03 0a ..... (The `printf` and `vim` commands are entered in the shell. The `:%!xxd` command is entered in Vim.) In the above example, a newline has been added by Vim where none existed in the binary file. In fact, if you then run `%!xxd -r` followed by `:w`, this additional newline would be written back to the file. Here is the right way to preserve the binary data in a binary file. printf "\x00\x01\x02\x03" > a.bin vim -b a.bin :%!xxd -g1 would display 0000000: 00 01 02 03 .... Only the four bytes in the file appear now. Alternatively, one may enter `:set bin` in Vim before editing a binary file.
  - noisy_boy 10y ago
    You can also use a range e.g. `5,10!column -t` would align columns for lines 5 to 10.
salgernon 10y ago
MPW - macintosh programmers workshop circa 1988 (when I first used it) had the notion that selections within windows could be treated as just another file. It had a lot of posix-y commands but lacked multitasking and all pipes were done via temp files, alas.
ihodes 10y ago
In emacs, `C-u M-| cmd <enter>` does this.
black_knight 10y ago
Acme, the text editor from Plan 9 has this. Piping, inputing and outputing from commands are some of the most basic operations there. Check out: - http://acme.cat-v.org/ http://acme.cat-v.org/ - Russ Cox' tour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dP1xVpMPn8M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dP1xVpMPn8M
- gravypod 10y ago
  Is there an updated version with less complicated mouse interfaces?
Veen 10y ago
This is what BBEdit filters do: http://bbeditextras.org/wiki/index.php?title=Text_Filters http://bbeditextras.org/wiki/index.php?title=Text_Filters
badsectoracula 10y ago
In my previous job i wrote an extension for Visual Studio to do exactly that: call a program with the selection, pass the input to its stdin and replace the selection with the output. Then i wrote a bunch of Python scripts to do things like recalculating command id's for wxWidgets, generating the registration, header and body parts from event definitions (which i cut/pasted later, but it was much faster than doing that by hand), aligning some declarations to fit with the code style, etc. The extension would also scan a folder inside My Documents and register any executable, python script, bash script and tcl script to a menu in the IDE. Many people in the studio knew Python and some new Bash (i think i was the only one who used Tcl though, i mainly used it to quickly search the filenames for the project and open a file in VS or Vim. I made it to search as i type and since we had a more or less 1-to-1 mapping between objects and files, i could search for object definitions faster than using VS's search functionality - especially when VS was busy building or doing stuff).
dotancohen 10y ago
The KDE text editor, Kate, has this. It is absolutely wonderful, and Kate is full of such gems.
vanviegen 10y ago
Kakoune makes this a central concept. Just hit pipe ('|') in normal mode. It even works for multiple selections!

tambourine_man 10y ago

FWIW, you can do that in Vim. Select text then: :'<,'>!command

my_ghola 10y ago
And `%!command` to replace the whole file. That's how editing hexadecimal in vim works. `%!xxd` to turn it, then `%!xxd -r` to turn it back. Another useful one is `%!jq .` to pretty print a json file.
- susam 10y ago
  I use this often. I usually enter `:%!xxd -g1` to show each byte value separately instead of showing two bytes together. $ printf "\x00\x01\x02\x03" | xxd 0000000: 0001 0203 $ printf "\x00\x01\x02\x03" | xxd -g1 0000000: 00 01 02 03 While editing binary files in Vim, one needs to be careful about setting the binary option before editing a binary file or opening the binary file with `-b` option. For example, printf "\x00\x01\x02\x03" > a.bin vim a.bin :%!xxd -g1 would display 0000000: 00 01 02 03 0a ..... (The `printf` and `vim` commands are entered in the shell. The `:%!xxd` command is entered in Vim.) In the above example, a newline has been added by Vim where none existed in the binary file. In fact, if you then run `%!xxd -r` followed by `:w`, this additional newline would be written back to the file. Here is the right way to preserve the binary data in a binary file. printf "\x00\x01\x02\x03" > a.bin vim -b a.bin :%!xxd -g1 would display 0000000: 00 01 02 03 .... Only the four bytes in the file appear now. Alternatively, one may enter `:set bin` in Vim before editing a binary file.
- noisy_boy 10y ago
  You can also use a range e.g. `5,10!column -t` would align columns for lines 5 to 10.

salgernon 10y ago

MPW - macintosh programmers workshop circa 1988 (when I first used it) had the notion that selections within windows could be treated as just another file. It had a lot of posix-y commands but lacked multitasking and all pipes were done via temp files, alas.

ihodes 10y ago

In emacs, `C-u M-| cmd <enter>` does this.

black_knight 10y ago

Acme, the text editor from Plan 9 has this. Piping, inputing and outputing from commands are some of the most basic operations there. Check out: - http://acme.cat-v.org/ http://acme.cat-v.org/ - Russ Cox' tour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dP1xVpMPn8M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dP1xVpMPn8M

gravypod 10y ago
Is there an updated version with less complicated mouse interfaces?

Veen 10y ago

This is what BBEdit filters do: http://bbeditextras.org/wiki/index.php?title=Text_Filters http://bbeditextras.org/wiki/index.php?title=Text_Filters

badsectoracula 10y ago

In my previous job i wrote an extension for Visual Studio to do exactly that: call a program with the selection, pass the input to its stdin and replace the selection with the output. Then i wrote a bunch of Python scripts to do things like recalculating command id's for wxWidgets, generating the registration, header and body parts from event definitions (which i cut/pasted later, but it was much faster than doing that by hand), aligning some declarations to fit with the code style, etc. The extension would also scan a folder inside My Documents and register any executable, python script, bash script and tcl script to a menu in the IDE. Many people in the studio knew Python and some new Bash (i think i was the only one who used Tcl though, i mainly used it to quickly search the filenames for the project and open a file in VS or Vim. I made it to search as i type and since we had a more or less 1-to-1 mapping between objects and files, i could search for object definitions faster than using VS's search functionality - especially when VS was busy building or doing stuff).

dotancohen 10y ago

The KDE text editor, Kate, has this. It is absolutely wonderful, and Kate is full of such gems.

vanviegen 10y ago

Kakoune makes this a central concept. Just hit pipe ('|') in normal mode. It even works for multiple selections!