4 ms·

Bat v0.26.0

149 points by indentit 1y ago

hoistbypetard 1y ago
When I saw this, I was hoping that [The Bat!](https://www.ritlabs.com/en/products/thebat/ https://www.ritlabs.com/en/products/thebat/) had been released as FOSS. This is still pretty cool.
- moepstar 1y ago
  Same, I thought they may have gone through a rebrand or something.. I wonder how long ago it was I last used it - must’ve been sometime around 2010 or a few years earlier..
- rado 1y ago
  Came here to say exactly that. Loved it back in the day, great app.
- aquir 1y ago
  Same here...but this is cool stuff as well!
- p0w3n3d 1y ago
  same. I believe I used to have some free version somewhere (bought on a CD with a magazine)
- tecleandor 1y ago
  OMG the flashback... I remember using "The Bat!" and Rimart's "Becky! Internet Mail" Exclamation marks seemed to be popular in names back in the day :D
  - pilif 1y ago
    Becky was so good for participating in mailing lists. I could slip by as a Unix user even though I was still mostly using Windows as my client OS.
    - tecleandor 1y ago
      Ha! I have a Becky backup on a Iomega Zip disk I have to check one day :D
jansan 1y ago
What is it? It says it is a cat clone, but what is cat?
- trentearl 1y ago
  cat is a classic unix program that outputs the contents of one or more files to stdout. It's short for concatenate
  - cpach 1y ago
    Nit-pick: It’s short for catenate (:
- AbuAssar 1y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_(Unix) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_(Unix)
- atoav 1y ago
  A very wide used command line program that prints out the contents of a file on a terminal. Chances are pretty high cat is installed on your system already. Example: If you're navigating to the folder of a git repository in your terminal and quickly want to see what the readme says without having to open a file manager or going to the website on github/gitlab/codeberg you can run: cat README.md Which shows the text stored in that file directly in your terminal window. bat does essentially the same, only fancier, with syntax highlighting, some formatting and colors.
  - Flamingoat 1y ago
    It doesn't do that actually. It concatenates files. From the description on the man page: Concatenate FILE(s) to standard output. With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/cat.1.html https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/cat.1.html
    - atoav 1y ago
Moosturm 1y ago
I love "bat". It just give readability in the terminal a boost.
bargainbin 1y ago
One of the first programs I install in any new setup. Just having the line numbers in your snippets, when all your communication is over asynchronous platforms with UX features designed by the Greatest Minds at Microsoft, streamlines discussions do much.
- signa11 1y ago
  oh you cheeky cat ! w3c did a huge disservice by not including the ‘snarky’ tag in their specification.
oneeyedpigeon 1y ago
The `--pager=builtin` change is interesting; first time I've heard of minus. > Traditional pagers like more or less weren't made for integrating into other applications. They were meant to be standalone binaries that are executed directly by users. However most applications don't adhere to this and exploit these pagers' functionality by calling them as external programs and passing the data through the standard input. Do people widely agree with this? That sounds less like 'exploitation' to me and more like 'the way Unix works'. > This method worked for Unix and other Unix-like OSs like Linux and MacOS because they already came with any of these pagers installed. But it wasn't this easy on Windows; it required shipping the pager binary along with the applications. Since these programs were originally designed for Unix and Unix-like OSs, distributing these binaries meant shipping an entire environment like MinGW or Cygwin so that these can run properly on Windows. So, to support Windows, we have to: - Abandon (maybe bypass) the core Unix principle of composing programs to carry out more complex tasks - Reimplement a pager library in every language Is that really the best approach? Even if so, I would have thought a minimal pager would be best, but the feature list of this pager library is fairly extensive: https://github.com/AMythicDev/minus?tab=readme-ov-file#features https://github.com/AMythicDev/minus?tab=readme-ov-file#featu...
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- bayindirh 1y ago
  > Do people widely agree with this? That sounds less like 'exploitation' to me and more like 'the way Unix works'. I personally don't. UNIX is made to be composable, and it's composition. more, less, most all consider pipe input as first-class citizens. I'm personally fond of "grep --color=always file.ext | less --raw" to page colored output. > Is that really the best approach? I don't think so. If I was the developer, I'd embed the pager only into the Windows build by default, and use system pagers on other systems (by default). If any person/distro wants to use the built-in pager, it'd be their choice. I don't like when developers bloat their own code with good intentions, but drift from their nice state to something bloated.
  - 1y ago
sundarurfriend 1y ago
bat is one of the few "new wave" tools that I install without hesitation, with no worries about stability issues or silent downsides. It has great defaults that make it feel like it always does the right thing for the context, just an unambiguous enhancement to my terminal experience.
- jesucresta 1y ago
  any other recommendation?
  - theshrike79 1y ago
    Along with bat, these are my main ones that I install always: fd, a better find: https://github.com/sharkdp/fd https://github.com/sharkdp/fd ripgrep (rg) a modern grep: https://github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep https://github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep eza for ls replacement: https://github.com/eza-community/eza https://github.com/eza-community/eza duf is a cleaner df: https://github.com/muesli/duf https://github.com/muesli/duf dust for du: https://github.com/bootandy/dust https://github.com/bootandy/dust Also fish + starship + yazi + helix, all of which mostly work perfectly with the defaults
    - fredoliveira 1y ago
      What is helix? Haven't heard of it before, I don't think.
      - Melonai 1y ago
        Helix is a Vim/Kakoune-inspired modal editor, with a bunch of stuff built in by default. For example it has support for a huge amount of LSPs and intergrates them automatically. It's command structure is also super similar to Vim's, but, basically, "flipped" around. So you wouldn't write "dw" to delete a word, but "wd". This means that you can see whatever you're selecting to be deleted highlighted before you actually execute the deletion. It has a bunch of saner commands also for stuff people usually want to do, like go to definition/usage, and honestly for people who aren't Vim-addicts such as myself, it's probably a good idea to check it out once, to see if it's a good fit for you.
lproven 1y ago
TIL: Bat != .bat != The Bat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batch_file https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batch_file https://www.ritlabs.com/en/products/thebat/ https://www.ritlabs.com/en/products/thebat/ Expanded... I have 2 mental definitions of "bat" as a term in computing. Only one can be interpreted as a standalone piece of software that has a version number. And this isn't it.
foofoo12 1y ago
The guy's brilliant. Check out his other projects too: https://github.com/sharkdp?tab=repositories https://github.com/sharkdp?tab=repositories
- jftuga 1y ago
  Slightly better link that filters to only to "Sources" (no forks) and also by number of Stars. https://github.com/sharkdp?tab=repositories&q=&type=source&language=&sort=stargazers https://github.com/sharkdp?tab=repositories&q=&type=source&l...
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
pkilgore 1y ago
bat is part of my extended posix "Must Installs", nicely extensible, glad to see it get love.
ctippett 1y ago
Has anyone had any luck compiling bat for WebAssembly? I tried recently to get a version I could run on a-Shell[1] on iOS, but ran into issues with some of its dependencies. [1]: https://github.com/holzschu/a-shell https://github.com/holzschu/a-shell
ManuLinares 1y ago
The builtin pager doesn't have an END shortcut... it's useless without such a small thing. edit: [n] G Go to the very bottom of the output. If n is present, goes to that line Oh capital G. What an intuitive keyword source:https://docs.rs/minus/latest/minus/#standard-actions https://docs.rs/minus/latest/minus/#standard-actions
- ksynwa 1y ago
  It is the same shortcut as less, vim, etc. There is plenty of precedent to choose it.

149 points by indentit 1y ago

When I saw this, I was hoping that [The Bat!](https://www.ritlabs.com/en/products/thebat/ https://www.ritlabs.com/en/products/thebat/) had been released as FOSS. This is still pretty cool.

moepstar 1y ago
Same, I thought they may have gone through a rebrand or something.. I wonder how long ago it was I last used it - must’ve been sometime around 2010 or a few years earlier..
rado 1y ago
Came here to say exactly that. Loved it back in the day, great app.
aquir 1y ago
Same here...but this is cool stuff as well!
p0w3n3d 1y ago
same. I believe I used to have some free version somewhere (bought on a CD with a magazine)
tecleandor 1y ago
OMG the flashback... I remember using "The Bat!" and Rimart's "Becky! Internet Mail" Exclamation marks seemed to be popular in names back in the day :D
- pilif 1y ago
  Becky was so good for participating in mailing lists. I could slip by as a Unix user even though I was still mostly using Windows as my client OS.
  - tecleandor 1y ago
    Ha! I have a Becky backup on a Iomega Zip disk I have to check one day :D

jansan 1y ago

What is it? It says it is a cat clone, but what is cat?

trentearl 1y ago
cat is a classic unix program that outputs the contents of one or more files to stdout. It's short for concatenate
- cpach 1y ago
  Nit-pick: It’s short for catenate (:
AbuAssar 1y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_(Unix) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_(Unix)
atoav 1y ago
A very wide used command line program that prints out the contents of a file on a terminal. Chances are pretty high cat is installed on your system already. Example: If you're navigating to the folder of a git repository in your terminal and quickly want to see what the readme says without having to open a file manager or going to the website on github/gitlab/codeberg you can run: cat README.md Which shows the text stored in that file directly in your terminal window. bat does essentially the same, only fancier, with syntax highlighting, some formatting and colors.
- Flamingoat 1y ago
  It doesn't do that actually. It concatenates files. From the description on the man page: Concatenate FILE(s) to standard output. With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/cat.1.html https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/cat.1.html
  - atoav 1y ago

Moosturm 1y ago

I love "bat". It just give readability in the terminal a boost.

bargainbin 1y ago

One of the first programs I install in any new setup. Just having the line numbers in your snippets, when all your communication is over asynchronous platforms with UX features designed by the Greatest Minds at Microsoft, streamlines discussions do much.

signa11 1y ago
oh you cheeky cat ! w3c did a huge disservice by not including the ‘snarky’ tag in their specification.

oneeyedpigeon 1y ago

The `--pager=builtin` change is interesting; first time I've heard of minus. > Traditional pagers like more or less weren't made for integrating into other applications. They were meant to be standalone binaries that are executed directly by users. However most applications don't adhere to this and exploit these pagers' functionality by calling them as external programs and passing the data through the standard input. Do people widely agree with this? That sounds less like 'exploitation' to me and more like 'the way Unix works'. > This method worked for Unix and other Unix-like OSs like Linux and MacOS because they already came with any of these pagers installed. But it wasn't this easy on Windows; it required shipping the pager binary along with the applications. Since these programs were originally designed for Unix and Unix-like OSs, distributing these binaries meant shipping an entire environment like MinGW or Cygwin so that these can run properly on Windows. So, to support Windows, we have to: - Abandon (maybe bypass) the core Unix principle of composing programs to carry out more complex tasks - Reimplement a pager library in every language Is that really the best approach? Even if so, I would have thought a minimal pager would be best, but the feature list of this pager library is fairly extensive: https://github.com/AMythicDev/minus?tab=readme-ov-file#features https://github.com/AMythicDev/minus?tab=readme-ov-file#featu...

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
bayindirh 1y ago
> Do people widely agree with this? That sounds less like 'exploitation' to me and more like 'the way Unix works'. I personally don't. UNIX is made to be composable, and it's composition. more, less, most all consider pipe input as first-class citizens. I'm personally fond of "grep --color=always file.ext | less --raw" to page colored output. > Is that really the best approach? I don't think so. If I was the developer, I'd embed the pager only into the Windows build by default, and use system pagers on other systems (by default). If any person/distro wants to use the built-in pager, it'd be their choice. I don't like when developers bloat their own code with good intentions, but drift from their nice state to something bloated.
- 1y ago

sundarurfriend 1y ago

bat is one of the few "new wave" tools that I install without hesitation, with no worries about stability issues or silent downsides. It has great defaults that make it feel like it always does the right thing for the context, just an unambiguous enhancement to my terminal experience.

jesucresta 1y ago
any other recommendation?
- theshrike79 1y ago
  Along with bat, these are my main ones that I install always: fd, a better find: https://github.com/sharkdp/fd https://github.com/sharkdp/fd ripgrep (rg) a modern grep: https://github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep https://github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep eza for ls replacement: https://github.com/eza-community/eza https://github.com/eza-community/eza duf is a cleaner df: https://github.com/muesli/duf https://github.com/muesli/duf dust for du: https://github.com/bootandy/dust https://github.com/bootandy/dust Also fish + starship + yazi + helix, all of which mostly work perfectly with the defaults
  - fredoliveira 1y ago
    What is helix? Haven't heard of it before, I don't think.
    - Melonai 1y ago
      Helix is a Vim/Kakoune-inspired modal editor, with a bunch of stuff built in by default. For example it has support for a huge amount of LSPs and intergrates them automatically. It's command structure is also super similar to Vim's, but, basically, "flipped" around. So you wouldn't write "dw" to delete a word, but "wd". This means that you can see whatever you're selecting to be deleted highlighted before you actually execute the deletion. It has a bunch of saner commands also for stuff people usually want to do, like go to definition/usage, and honestly for people who aren't Vim-addicts such as myself, it's probably a good idea to check it out once, to see if it's a good fit for you.

lproven 1y ago

TIL: Bat != .bat != The Bat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batch_file https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batch_file https://www.ritlabs.com/en/products/thebat/ https://www.ritlabs.com/en/products/thebat/ Expanded... I have 2 mental definitions of "bat" as a term in computing. Only one can be interpreted as a standalone piece of software that has a version number. And this isn't it.

foofoo12 1y ago

The guy's brilliant. Check out his other projects too: https://github.com/sharkdp?tab=repositories https://github.com/sharkdp?tab=repositories

jftuga 1y ago
Slightly better link that filters to only to "Sources" (no forks) and also by number of Stars. https://github.com/sharkdp?tab=repositories&q=&type=source&language=&sort=stargazers https://github.com/sharkdp?tab=repositories&q=&type=source&l...

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

pkilgore 1y ago

bat is part of my extended posix "Must Installs", nicely extensible, glad to see it get love.

ctippett 1y ago

Has anyone had any luck compiling bat for WebAssembly? I tried recently to get a version I could run on a-Shell[1] on iOS, but ran into issues with some of its dependencies. [1]: https://github.com/holzschu/a-shell https://github.com/holzschu/a-shell

ManuLinares 1y ago

The builtin pager doesn't have an END shortcut... it's useless without such a small thing. edit: [n] G Go to the very bottom of the output. If n is present, goes to that line Oh capital G. What an intuitive keyword source:https://docs.rs/minus/latest/minus/#standard-actions https://docs.rs/minus/latest/minus/#standard-actions

ksynwa 1y ago
It is the same shortcut as less, vim, etc. There is plenty of precedent to choose it.