4 ms·

I meant like index.html <tab> And you’d get open, copy, rename, create symlink, delete, compress, etc.

a1369209993 6y ago
That sounds like a GUI; how do I pipe [open, copy, rename, etc] into sed or awk? (Because the^Wa problem with GUIs is that the answer tends to be "Why would you want to do a wierd thing like that?".)
- henrikeh 6y ago
  Can you explain more clearly what you mean? Why does the order of commands or their names have any influence on whether pipes can be used? How do you pipe the output of cp into awk?
  - a1369209993 6y ago
    > Can you explain more clearly what you mean? I can try... Specifically, given a command that produces a list of "everything that can be done with the file", how do I cause the (unstructured) text of that list to be piped into a arbitrary other program, in the same way that `grep foo a.txt | bar` causes a list of occurences of 'foo' in a.txt to be piped into arbitrary program bar. > How do you pipe the output of cp into awk? $ cp -vT foo/ bar/* | awk '...'
    - henrikeh 6y ago
      Ah, thanks for the clarification, it definitely cleared up what you mean. As I understood the suggestion re. file actions it is meant as some sort of interactive completion. So if I type the name of an image file and press tap, I am given the suggestions or options about resizing, format conversion etc. Several shells already have interactive completion of file names. And I think that pattern makes sense from an exploration perspective. If you learn that file name + tab gives suggestions, then a lot of the learning about what the command line can do can be done directly in the command line. And maybe it could be a command rather than a tab-press. Then it, given a file, prints typical actions/commands/tasks to stdout and then subsequent CLI tools can be used to process that output. I really don’t see how this is incompatible with existing workflows :-)
      - henrikeh 6y ago
        Update. I tried the `file -u` example you gave above and the `-u` flag doesn't exist in my version of `file`. I also find it a bit hilarious that the example lists `ed` as the editor of choice.
        a1369209993 6y ago
        > the `-u` flag doesn't exist in [any] version of `file` Yeah, I was giving a example of a sensible way to design it, not documenting something that already exists; sorry if that wasn't clear. > And maybe it could be a command [like `file -u FILE`] rather than a tab-press. Then it, given a file, prints typical actions/commands/tasks to stdout and then subsequent CLI tools can be used to process that output. Pretty much that, yes. > I also find it a bit hilarious that the example lists `ed` as the editor of choice. I don't think unix had TECO as a standard utility, so I went with what was available.
- zambal 6y ago
  It's just postfix notation. I don't see why you shouldn't be able to do something like: index.html open | sed

a1369209993 6y ago

That sounds like a GUI; how do I pipe [open, copy, rename, etc] into sed or awk? (Because the^Wa problem with GUIs is that the answer tends to be "Why would you want to do a wierd thing like that?".)

henrikeh 6y ago
Can you explain more clearly what you mean? Why does the order of commands or their names have any influence on whether pipes can be used? How do you pipe the output of cp into awk?
- a1369209993 6y ago
  > Can you explain more clearly what you mean? I can try... Specifically, given a command that produces a list of "everything that can be done with the file", how do I cause the (unstructured) text of that list to be piped into a arbitrary other program, in the same way that `grep foo a.txt | bar` causes a list of occurences of 'foo' in a.txt to be piped into arbitrary program bar. > How do you pipe the output of cp into awk? $ cp -vT foo/ bar/* | awk '...'
  - henrikeh 6y ago
    Ah, thanks for the clarification, it definitely cleared up what you mean. As I understood the suggestion re. file actions it is meant as some sort of interactive completion. So if I type the name of an image file and press tap, I am given the suggestions or options about resizing, format conversion etc. Several shells already have interactive completion of file names. And I think that pattern makes sense from an exploration perspective. If you learn that file name + tab gives suggestions, then a lot of the learning about what the command line can do can be done directly in the command line. And maybe it could be a command rather than a tab-press. Then it, given a file, prints typical actions/commands/tasks to stdout and then subsequent CLI tools can be used to process that output. I really don’t see how this is incompatible with existing workflows :-)
    - henrikeh 6y ago
      Update. I tried the `file -u` example you gave above and the `-u` flag doesn't exist in my version of `file`. I also find it a bit hilarious that the example lists `ed` as the editor of choice.
      - a1369209993 6y ago
        > the `-u` flag doesn't exist in [any] version of `file` Yeah, I was giving a example of a sensible way to design it, not documenting something that already exists; sorry if that wasn't clear. > And maybe it could be a command [like `file -u FILE`] rather than a tab-press. Then it, given a file, prints typical actions/commands/tasks to stdout and then subsequent CLI tools can be used to process that output. Pretty much that, yes. > I also find it a bit hilarious that the example lists `ed` as the editor of choice. I don't think unix had TECO as a standard utility, so I went with what was available.
zambal 6y ago
It's just postfix notation. I don't see why you shouldn't be able to do something like: index.html open | sed