printing string into command line like it's a new command - linux

Question

I want to make a shortcut for long commands with default arguments so I can bring the command into the command line and then add or change arguments by myself.
For example with the command wget:
print "wget -O downloaded.file"
will result in:
user#hostname$ wget -O downloaded.file
and then I add the "url" I want to download from:
user#hostname$ wget -O downloaded.file http://example.com/

Answer 1

With
alias my_personal_wget_shortcut="wget -O downloaded.file"
additional arguments are added afterwards:
my_personal_wget_shortcut http://example.com/
With a function or a shell script, you can place the arguments anywhere you like:
Function:
my_personal_wget_shortcut()
{
wget -O downloaded.file "$#"
}
Script:
#!/bin/bash
wget -O downloaded.file "$#"
Don't forget to set the x-bit on the script!

Answer 2

My answer is based on solutions from https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/82716/330217 and https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/325220/330217.
You might also get some ideas from https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/391698/330217
Clean way for bash, but requires pressing cursor-up:
You can put "fake" commands onto bash's command history using
history -s 'some command'
(see https://www.gnu.org/savannah-checkouts/gnu/bash/manual/bash.html#Bash-History-Builtins)
After putting the command to the history you can press the cursor-up key to get this command into the command buffer and edit it as you like.
Of course you can use an alias as a shortcut.
alias myalias="history -s 'wget -O downloaded.file '"
myalias
After pressing cursor-up you should get
wget -O downloaded.file _
Note: The underscore (_) is meant to show the cursor position after the trailing space.
More hacky solution which directly fills the command buffer:
writecmd () {
perl -e 'ioctl STDOUT, 0x5412, $_ for split //, do{ chomp($_ = <>); $_ }' ;
}
# Example usage
echo 'my test cmd' | writecmd
Combined with an alias
writecmd () {
perl -e 'ioctl STDOUT, 0x5412, $_ for split //, do{ chomp($_ = <>); $_ }' ;
}
alias myalias="echo 'wget -O downloaded.file '|writecmd"
myalias
should directly result in
wget -O downloaded.file _
Note: This solution has the drawback that it also prints the command to stdout. That means the command also appears before the prompt. (I don't know if it is possible to suppress this. When I redirect stdout to /dev/null, the command will no longer be written to the command buffer.)
In zsh you could use print -z to put something into the command buffer.
alias myalias="print -z 'wget -O downloaded.file '"