05-10-2009
Idea for an "informative" bash alias or script
I had the idea come into my head that it would be good to have a single command that gave file type, file size, last modification date, and owner/group information, like what one would see in a GUI "Properties" dialog, but all in a terminal window. In my opinion, these statistics about a file should be available via one command in an xterm or rxvt situation. So I started looking things up.
It turns out that the information such an alias (or script) would return comes from two Linux/Unix commands, "file" and "stat". From file, one can glean mime-type as well as or instead of file type, since most of the time when one types in "file somefile.ext, what comes back is somewhat vague. From stat, one can glean much of the other information (size, last mod date, owner, group).
Now where it falls down for me is in what I don't know about writing scripts. Particularly how to format commands in functions so they handle file name strings entered by the user in the terminal. I've a vague clue there is something on the order of a {FILE} or ${FILE} variable involved, but I can't seem to "stick" the syntax without getting an error returned like "No such file or directory" or something.
Also, if there already is a single command that 'barfs back' the info I'm looking for, I certainly would rather use it than hike further down the scripting path.
Any help would be appreciated.
BZT
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WHICH(1) General Commands Manual WHICH(1)
NAME
which - shows the full path of (shell) commands.
SYNOPSIS
which [options] [--] programname [...]
DESCRIPTION
Which takes one or more arguments. For each of its arguments it prints to stdout the full path of the executables that would have been exe-
cuted when this argument had been entered at the shell prompt. It does this by searching for an executable or script in the directories
listed in the environment variable PATH using the same algorithm as bash(1).
This man page is generated from the file which.texinfo.
OPTIONS
--all, -a
Print all matching executables in PATH, not just the first.
--read-alias, -i
Read aliases from stdin, reporting matching ones on stdout. This is useful in combination with using an alias for which itself. For
example
alias which='alias | which -i'.
--skip-alias
Ignore option `--read-alias', if any. This is useful to explicity search for normal binaries, while using the `--read-alias' option in
an alias or function for which.
--read-functions
Read shell function definitions from stdin, reporting matching ones on stdout. This is useful in combination with using a shell func-
tion for which itself. For example:
which() { declare -f | which --read-functions $@ }
export -f which
--skip-functions
Ignore option `--read-functions', if any. This is useful to explicity search for normal binaries, while using the `--read-functions'
option in an alias or function for which.
--skip-dot
Skip directories in PATH that start with a dot.
--skip-tilde
Skip directories in PATH that start with a tilde and executables which reside in the HOME directory.
--show-dot
If a directory in PATH starts with a dot and a matching executable was found for that path, then print "./programname" rather than the
full path.
--show-tilde
Output a tilde when a directory matches the HOME directory. This option is ignored when which is invoked as root.
--tty-only
Stop processing options on the right if not on tty.
--version,-v,-V
Print version information on standard output then exit successfully.
--help
Print usage information on standard output then exit successfully.
RETURN VALUE
Which returns the number of failed arguments, or -1 when no `programname' was given.
EXAMPLE
The recommended way to use this utility is by adding an alias (C shell) or shell function (Bourne shell) for which like the following:
[ba]sh:
which ()
{
(alias; declare -f) | /usr/bin/which --tty-only --read-alias --read-functions --show-tilde --show-dot $@
}
export -f which
[t]csh:
alias which 'alias | /usr/bin/which --tty-only --read-alias --show-dot --show-tilde'
This will print the readable ~/ and ./ when starting which from your prompt, while still printing the full path when used from a script:
> which q2
~/bin/q2
> echo `which q2`
/home/carlo/bin/q2
BUGS
The HOME directory is determined by looking for the HOME environment variable, which aborts when this variable doesn't exist. Which will
consider two equivalent directories to be different when one of them contains a path with a symbolic link.
AUTHOR
Carlo Wood <carlo@gnu.org>
SEE ALSO
bash(1)
WHICH(1)