There seems to be quite a lot of information on how to edit and execute a command using your editor using "edit-and-execute-command (C-x C-e)", but what I would like to achieve is take the current shell command, apply certain filtering (using a script) and then return it to prompt for further approval/manual changes before execution. Is this possible with bash?
Latest update based on my experience
The part 0"+y$dd in the following mapping is really something that you should carefully think about and tailor it to your taste/workflow/experience.
For instance, very frequently I've found myself ending up with multiple lines in the buffer, where I only want to execute the one the cursor is on; in this case I can use 0"+y$dd:%d<CR> instead of 0"+y$dd.
And this is just one of the possible scenarios.
Final answer for those who like vim
Set vim as your EDITOR/VISUAL, so that when editing a command line, you will use vim to edit it.
Put au BufEnter /tmp/bash-fc.* nn <Leader>d 0"+y$dd:wq<CR> in your ~/.vimrc file to map Leaderd (which you will rarely use when editing a command) to the action "delete the current line into the + register without the trailing EOL".
you can use either the + or the * register in the mapping above; the ways to paste into the terminal will likely differ; you need the +clipboard option for these registers to be available.
When finished editing a command in the vim editor, hit EscapeLeaderd.
Paste the clipboard into the terminal (this is terminal-dependent).
Original answer
I often need to do the same, and I do it as follows. (I normally use the set -o vi in bash, so points 1 and 2 in the following are different if you use set -o emacs, the default; based on your question it looks like points 1 and 2 are unified in Ctrl+x followed by Ctrl+e, which is harder to type, imho.)
hit Escape to be in normal mode,
hit v to enter the editor to edit the command,
edit the command as I like,
(This is where you ask the question.)
hit Escape0"+y$dd:wq,
Note: 0"+y$, not simply "+yy, as the latter would copy the newline too, and this would result in executing the command upon pasting it in the command line,
paste the clipboard on the command line
how to do this depends on the terminal you are using, I guess; I hit Ctrl+Alt+v in URxvt.
proceed to approval/manual edit.
Clearly this is just a workaround, consisting in copying the edited command into the clipboard before deleting the whole command, so that nothing gets executed upon exiting the editor; however it's the best I can get for myself.
Update
As my EDITOR (and VISUAL) is equal to vim, when I edit the command, I edit it in vim.
In this respect, I have noticed that the buffer is named /tmp/bash-fc.random, where random is a 6-characters alphanumeric random string.
This gives space to a lot of possiblities, if you use vim as your editor, as you can define some mapping in your .vimrc to execute the whole sequence Escape0"+y$dd:wq. For instance, one command that you'd rarely use when editing a command line is Leaderd; therefore you can put the following mapping in your .vimrc file
au BufEnter /tmp/bash-fc.* nn <Leader>d 0"+y$dd:wq<CR>
so that step 4 in the above recipe becomes
hit EscapeLeaderd
It's not possible to do that in Bash/readline but it's possible in zsh
using edit-command-line command:
darkstar% autoload edit-command-line; zle -N edit-command-line
darkstar% bindkey "^X^E" edit-command-line
Now press Control-x Control-e to open your editor, edit line, leave the editor - you will see the updated command line but it will not be executed automatically.
Now that I think about it, maybe a variation of what #kenorb suggested in a comment is the best workaround (as it seems no solution exists), if we want to stick to bash.
What you can do is prepend a # (the comment character in bash) to the command, rather than echo. Then when you exit the editor, the command will be ineffective, and you will only have to press arrow up (or k, if you use set -o vi), remove the # and confirming.
Note that this strategy adds just a few keystrokes, so it can be fairly efficient, depending on your typing level.
These pieces might get you closer:
a) replace the the normal binding for newline newline (ctrl-M)
bind -x '"\C-M":date"
b) grab the current line from the history using !#
replace date with whatever script you want.
c) edit manually
d) if necessary, somehow tie in !!:p which prints the new command to the command line but does not execute it, thus letting you manually edit it.
e) using ctrl-J submit edited command rather than a newline
or they might not ....
There is an option in bash to modify command from history without executing it. I'm not sure it it's possible to use script for this, doesn't seem to be likely. Although, you can make modifications using history modifiers.
Enable option histverify to prevent execution of modified command
Use chain of modifiers to change last command
Use "!!" to put your result to command line for final edit
Here is how it looks:
$ shopt -s histverify
$ ls *.sh
script1.sh script2.sh script3.sh script-return.sh
$ !!:s/*/script1/:p
ls script1.sh
$ !!:s/1/2/:p
ls script2.sh
$ !!
$ ls script2.sh
script2.sh
I'd like to point you to the Composure framework for Bash (I'm not affiliated with it): https://github.com/erichs/composure
It provides draft and revise functions that sound like they could help with what you're trying to do. Here's a (long) quote from the project's readme file:
Composure helps by letting you quickly draft simple shell functions,
breaking down your long pipe filters and complex commands into
readable and reusable chunks.
Draft first, ask questions later
Once you've crafted your gem of a command, don't throw it away! Use
draft () and give it a good name. This stores your last command as a
function you can reuse later. Think of it like a rough draft.
$ cat servers.txt
bashful: up
doc: down
up-arrow
$ cat servers.txt | grep down
doc: down
$ draft finddown
$ finddown | mail -s "down server(s)" admin#here.com
Revise, revise, revise!
Now that you've got a minimal shell function, you may want to make it
better through refactoring and revision. Use the revise () command
to revise your shell function in your favorite editor.
generalize functions with input parameters
add or remove functionality
add supporting metadata for documentation
$ revise finddown
finddown ()
{
about finds servers marked 'down' in text file
group admin
cat $1 | grep down
}
$ finddown servers.txt
doc: down
It does not seem possible with a keyboard shortcut, at least:
$ bind -P | grep -e command -e edit
complete-command can be found on "\e!".
edit-and-execute-command can be found on "\C-x\C-e".
emacs-editing-mode is not bound to any keys
possible-command-completions can be found on "\C-x!".
vi-editing-mode is not bound to any keys
This can be done in native bash using readline specifically READLINE_LINE and READLINE_POINT variables. I use this functionality all the time though not through vim, you would need to get the value of $selected from your vim command and if not empty it takes your original line + your input and replaces your original line with the combination without executing. output as a variable
_main() {
selected="$(__coms_select__ "$#")"
origonal_text=$READLINE_LINE READLINE_LINE="${READLINE_LINE:0:$READLINE_POINT}$selected${READLINE_LINE:$READLINE_POINT}"
READLINE_POINT=$(( READLINE_POINT + ${#selected} ))
}
bind -m emacs-standard -x '"\C-e": _main '
bind -m vi-command -x '"\C-e": _main '
bind -m vi-insert -x '"\C-e": _main '
Edit
Just remembered these two utilities that will let you do this as well.
Vipe allows you to run your editor in the middle of a unix pipeline and edit the data that is being piped between programs.
vp, up, vipe, Neomux (upgrade of nvim terminal) you can do some pretty neat throwing buffers between the terminal and split window.
and Athame (full vim on the command line)
https://github.com/ardagnir/athame
careful with that one though plugins work on the cli and it can get funky if you got tons of plugins
I know there are a lot of tutorials on bash completion, but I just can't figure this out.
All I want is this. If I type myscript[tab][tab], then "myscript list-commands" is run. It will output a space delimited list of available commands (but I can output it however is appropriate). That output list is used for tab completion.
What do I put it my .bashrc to make that happen?
The easiest way is using a list of words/commands that your script supports:
Put the following into your .bashrc to have your script myscript support the commands add, list, delete:
complete -W "add list delete" myscript
This will leads to
> myscript [tab][tab]
add list delete
Hope this help. For further, more dynamic options than a simple wordlist have a look at the manpage of the complete command: https://ss64.com/osx/complete.html
When I type some command, I sometimes want to read the help of the command. For example, when I'm typing
sort --overwrite some_texI # I is a cursor
, I'd like to check if sort command has --overwrite option, reading the output of sort --help or whatever option-summary I've made. I expect bind -x could realize this, but have no idea how to pass (a part of) the current command line information (in this case, the word "sort"). Of course, bind -x 'KEY: "sort --help"' works well, but I want this to work for all commands. So the pseudo command would be bind -x 'KEY: "CURRENT_COMMAND --help"'.
Could anyone please give a solution or a hint?
You can use READLINE_LINE variable of bash. man bash says
bind [-m keymap] keyseq:readline-command
(snip)
-x keyseq:shell-command
(snip) When shell-command is executed, the shell sets the READLINE_LINE variable to the contents of the readline line buffer
So what you want is the first word of READLINE_LINE. Thus, the solution is bind -x 'KEY": "array=($READLINE_LINE); ${array[0]} --help"'.
I have a (possibly ill-advised) idea for improving tab completion based on the command history. Ideally, I'd want to apply this to every command in the terminal.
Basically I'm looking for something like:
complete -F _my_function *
where the glob actually works.
Is this at all possible, or would I have to set it manually for every command I use?
complete -D defines the "default" completion procedure, for all commands for which no specific completion has been set. If you want the default to apply to all commands, just don't set any specific completions. If you want to remove a completion, use complete -r command (or complete -r to erase all of them).
Also see complete -E.
For details, see the Bash manual.
I can't find a man page or any help for ssft. I want to use it in my bash scripts to select either kdialog (if on KDE) or zenity (if on gnome).
See Shell Scripts Frontend Tool
Surely the help pages are somewhere, but I must be overlooking them.
I am running Debian 6.0 Squeeze stable right now, and it has a manpage for ssft.sh. Try man ssft.sh. If that doesn't do what you want, let me know and you and I will figure out what does.
Update: All right. You have tried the manpage, which doesn't tell you what you want to know. There does not appear to exist any more thorough documentation for Ssft (maybe, when this is all over, you will write and contribute that very documentation). However, in Ssft's source appears to be a test script that makes the software do the various things it is designed to do. Sometimes, a good example is even better than a manual. That test script may be just what you need.
To extract the test script, issue a sequence of commands like the following sequence.
$ cd /tmp
$ apt-get source ssft
$ ls
$ cd ssft-0.9.13 # (Your version number may differ from 0.9.13.)
$ ls
$ cd tests
$ ls
When I do the above, the last ls listing reveals a shell script named ssft-test.sh. Inside that script appear to be several examples of how to use ssft.sh correctly.
http://man.devl.cz/man/1/ssft.sh
ssft.sh(1)
SSFT
Name
ssft.sh - library of shell script frontend functions
Synopsis
. ssft.sh
Description
ssft.sh is a library of shell functions that must be sourced from other scripts. If the script is executed without arguments it prints an usage message and also supports the options --doc, --help and --version.
To get a list of available functions call the script with the --doc argument and to get a description of what a given function does call the script with --doc FUNCTION_NAME.
On the typical case the library must be sourced and the SSFT_FRONTEND variable must be set to the desired frontend (zenity, dialog or text); if the variable is not set the default frontend is noninteractive.
To choose the theorically best looking frontend use the function ssft_choose_frontend as follows:
. ssft.sh [ -n "$SSFT_FRONTEND" ] || SSFT_FRONTEND="$( ssft_choose_frontend )"
Written by Sergio Talens-Oliag .
$ /usr/bin/ssft.sh
Shell Script Frontend Tool (version 0.9.13)
Usage: . ssft.sh
When called directly the program supports the following options:
-d,--doc [FUNCTIONS] Prints the list of available functions. If function names are given prints functions' documentation.
-h,--help This message
-v,--version File version
functions:
$ /usr/bin/ssft.sh -d
ssft_set_textdomain
ssft_reset_textdomain
ssft_choose_frontend
ssft_print_text_title
ssft_display_message
ssft_display_error
ssft_display_emsg
ssft_file_selection
ssft_directory_selection
ssft_progress_bar
ssft_read_string
ssft_read_password
ssft_select_multiple
ssft_select_single
ssft_yesno
ssft_show_file