Linux cat command output with new lines to be read using vim - linux

I am trying to open all the files listed in file a.lst:
symptom1.log
symptom2.log
symptom3.log
symptom4.log
But trying the following command:
cat a.lst | tr "\n" " " | vim -
opens only the stdin output
symptom1.log symptom2.log symptom3.log symptom4.log
It doesn't open symptom1.log, symptom2.log, symptom3.log & symptom4.log in vim.
How to open all the files listed in a.lst using vim?

You could use xargs to line upp the arguments to vi:
vim $(cat 1.t | xargs)
or
cat a.lst | xargs vim
If you want them open in split view, use -o (horizontal) or -O (vertical):
cat a.lst | xargs vim -o
cat a.lst | xargs vim -O

while read f ; do cat $f ; done < a.lst | vim -

I like a variation on Qiau's xargs option:
xargs vim < a.lst
This works because the input redirection is applied to the xargs command rather than vim.
If your shell is bash, another option is this:
vim $(<a.lst)
This works because within the $(...), input redirection without a command simply prints the results of the input, hence expanding the file into a list of files for vim to open.
UPDATE:
You mentioned in comments that you are using csh as your shell. So another option for you might be:
vim `cat a.lst`
This should work in POSIX shells as well, but I should point out that backquotes are deprecated in some other shells (notably bash) in favour of the $(...) alternative.
Note that redirection can happen in multiple places on your command line. This should also work in both csh and bash:
< a.lst xargs vim
vim may complain that its input is not coming from a terminal, but it appears to work for me anyway.

Related

parse grep output and run vim with result

I'm current using command line to grep a pattern in a source tree. A line of grep output is in the form:
path/to/a/file.java:123: some text here
If I want to open the file at the location specified in the grep output, I would have to manually enter the vim command as:
$ vim +123 path/to/a/file.java
Is there an easier method that would allow me to use the raw grep output and have the relevant components parsed and run vim for the file at the line#.
I am interested in a command line solution. I am aware that I can do greps inside vim.
Thanks
The file-line plugin is exactly what you want. With that installed, you can just run
vim path/to/a/file.java:123
You could simply run grep from Vim itself and benefit from the quickfix list/window:
:grep -Rn foo **/*.h
:cw
(scroll around)
<CR>
Or you could pass your grep output to Vim for the same benefits:
$ vim -q <(grep -Rn foo **/*.h)
:cw
(scroll around)
<CR>
Or, if you are already in Vim, you could insert the output of your grep in a buffer and use gF to jump to the right line of the right file:
:r !grep -Rn foo **/*.h
(scroll around)
gF
Or, from your shell:
$ vim <(grep -Rn foo **/*.h)
(scroll around)
gF
Or, if you just ran your grep, you can reuse it like so:
$ vim <(!!)
(scroll around)
gF
Or, if you know its number in history:
$ vim <(!884)
(scroll around)
gF
> vim $(cat the.file | grep xxx)
will evauluates the $() - find xxx in the.file then will pipe xxx to vim
also possible with backticks ``:
> vim `cat the.file | grep xxx`
Try this:
grep -nr --null pattern | { IFS= read -rd "" f; IFS=: read -d "" n match; vim +$n "$f" </dev/tty; }
grep does a recursive search for pattern. For the first file that it finds, vim is started with the +linenum parameter to put you on the line of interest.
This approach uses NUL-separated i/o. It should be safe for all file names, even ones that contain white space or other difficult characters.
This was tested on GNU tools (Linux). It may work on BSD/OSX as well.
Multiline version
For those who prefer their commands spread over multiple lines:
grep -nr --null pattern | {
IFS= read -rd "" f
IFS=: read -d "" n match
vim +$n "$f" </dev/tty
}
Convenience function
Because the above command is long, one may want to put it in a shell function:
vigrep() { grep -nr --null "$1" | { IFS= read -rd "" f; IFS=: read -d "" n match; vim +$n "$f" </dev/tty; }; }
Once this has been defined, it can be used to search for a file containing any pattern. For example:
vigrep 'some text here'
To make the definition of vigrep permanent, put it in your ~/.bashrc file.
How it works
grep -nr --null pattern
-r tells grep to search recursively.
-n tells grep to return line number of the matches.
-null tells grep to use NUL-separated output
pattern is the regex to search for.
IFS= read -rd "" f
This reads the first NUL-separated section of input (which will be a file name) and assigns it to the shell variable f.
IFS=: read -d "" n match
This reads the next NUL-separated section of input using : as the word separator. The first word (which is the line number) is assigned to shell variable n. The rest of this line will be ignored.
vim +$n "$f" </dev/tty
This starts vim on line number $n of file $f using the terminal, /dev/tty, for input.
Generally, when running vim, one really wants to have vim accept input from the keyboard. That is why, for this case, we hard-coded input from /dev/tty.
Using cut-and-paste to launch vim
Start the following and cut-and-paste a line of grep -n output to it:
IFS=: read f n rest; vim +$n "$f"
The read command will wait for a line on standard input. The type of input it expects looks like:
path/to/a/file.java:123: some text here
Because IFS=:, it divides up the line on colons and assigns the file name to shell variable f and the line number to shell variable n. When this is done, it launches the vim command.
This command could also, if desired, be saved as a shell function:
grvim() { IFS=: read f n rest; vim "+$n" "$f"; }
I have this function in my .bashrc:
grep_edit(){
grep "$#" | sed 's/:/ +/;s/:/ /';
}
So, the output is in the form:
path/to/a/file.java +123 some text here
Then I can directly use
$ vi path/to/a/file.java +123
Note: I have also heard of file-line plugin, but I was not sure how it will work with netrw plugin.
e.g. vi can open remote files with this syntax:
vi scp://root#remote-system//var/log/daemon.log
But if that is not a concern, then you can better use file-line plugin.

Execute a command within Vim from the command line

Is there a way to execute a Vim command on a file from the command line?
I know the opposite is true like this:
:!python %
But what if I wanted to :retab a file without opening it in Vim? For example:
> vim myfile.c
:retab | wq
This will open myfile.c, replace the tabs with spaces, and then save and close. I'd like to chain this sequence together to a single command somehow.
It would be something like this:
> vim myfile.c retab | wq
This works:
gvim -c "set et|retab|wq" foo.txt
set et (= set expandtab) ensures the tab characters get replaced with the correct number of spaces (otherwise, retab won't work).
I don't normally use it, but vim -c ... also works
The solution as given above presumes the default tab stop of eight is appropriate. If, say, a tab stop of four is intended, use the command sequence "set ts=4|set et|retab|wq".
You have several options:
-c "commands" : will play Ex commands as you entered them in the command line.
In your example : vim myfile -c 'retab | wq'. This is what Firstrock suggested.
-S "vim source file" : will source given vim script
(like running vim -c "source 'vim source file'"):
If you have a file script.vim containing:
retab
wq
Then you can use vim myfile.c -s script.vim (the extension does not really matter)
-s "scriptin file": will play contents of file as it contains normal mode commands: If you have script.txt containing:
:retab
ZZ
with end of lines consisting of a single ^M character (for example you saved the script using the :set fileformat=mac | w), then you can run: vim myfile.c -S script.txt (ZZ is another way to exit vim and save current file).
Note that you can record those scripts with vim my_file -W script.txt, but it suffers a bug if you happen to use gvim (the GUI).
Not a direct answer to your question, but if you want to replace tabs with spaces (or do any other regex search/replace) for a list of files, you can just use in-place sed search/replace:
sed -i 's/\t/ /g' foo1.txt foo2.txt
or
ls *.txt | xargs sed -i 's/\t/ /g'
(In this example I am replacing each tab character with three spaces.)
NOTE: the -i flag means operate in-place.
From the sed man page:
-i[SUFFIX], --in-place[=SUFFIX]
edit files in place (makes backup if extension
supplied)

Vim: open files of the matches on the lines given by Grep?

I want to get automatically to the positions of the results in Vim after grepping, on command line. Is there such feature?
Files to open in Vim on the lines given by grep:
% grep --colour -n checkWordInFile *
SearchToUser.java:170: public boolean checkWordInFile(String word, File file) {
SearchToUser.java~:17: public boolean checkWordInFile(String word, File file) {
SearchToUser.java~:41: if(checkWordInFile(word, f))
If you pipe the output from grep into vim
% grep -n checkWordInFile * | vim -
you can put the cursor on the filename and hit gF to jump to the line in that file that's referenced by that line of grep output. ^WF will open it in a new window.
From within vim you can do the same thing with
:tabedit
:r !grep -n checkWordInFile *
which is equivalent to but less convenient than
:lgrep checkWordInFile *
:lopen
which brings up the superfantastic quickfix window so you can conveniently browse through search results.
You can alternatively get slower but in-some-ways-more-flexible results by using vim's native grep:
:lvimgrep checkWordInFile *
:lopen
This one uses vim REs and paths (eg allowing **). It can take 2-4 times longer to run (maybe more), but you get to use fancy \(\)\#<=s and birds of a feather.
Have a look at "Grep search tools integration with Vim" and "Find in files within Vim". Basically vim provides these commands for searching files:
:grep
:lgrep
:vimgrep
:lvimgrep
The articles feature more information regarding their usage.
You could do this:
% vim "+/checkWordInFile" $(grep -l checkWordInFile *)
This will put in the vim command line a list of all the files that match the regex. The "+/..." option will tell vim to search from the start of each file until it finds the first line that matches the regex.
Correction:
The +/... option will only search the first file for the regex. To search in every file you need this:
% vim "-c bufdo /checkWordInFile" $(grep -l checkWordInFile *)
If this is something you need to do often you could write a bash function so that you only need to specify the regex once (assuming that the regex is valid for both grep and vim).
I think this is what you are looking for:
http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=2184
When you open a file:line, for instance when coping and pasting from an error from your compiler (or grep output) vim tries to open a file with a colon in its name. With this little script in your plugins folder if the stuff after the colon is a number and a file exists with the name especified before the colon vim will open this file and take you to the line you wished in the first place.
It's definitely what I was looking for.
I highly recommend ack.vim over grep for this functionality.
http://github.com/mileszs/ack.vim
http://betterthangrep.com/
You probably want to make functions for these. :)
Sequential vim calls (console)
grep -rn "implements" app | # Or any (with "-n") you like
awk '{
split($0,a,":"); # split on ":"
print "</dev/tty vim", a[1], "+" a[2] # results in lines with "</dev/tty vim <foundfile> +<linenumber>
}' |
parallel --halt-on-error 1 -j1 --tty bash -ec # halt on error and "-e" important to make it possible to quit in the middle
Use :cq from vim to stop editing.
Concurrent opening in tabs (gvim)
Start the server:
gvim --servername GVIM
Open the tabs:
grep -rn "implements" app | # again, any grep you like (with "-n")
awk "{ # double quotes because of $PWD
split(\$0,a,\":\"); # split on ":"
print \":tabedit $PWD/\" a[1] \"<CR>\" a[2] \"G\" # Vim commands. Open file, then jump to line
}" |
parallel gvim --servername GVIM --remote-send # of course the servername needs to match
If you use git, results are often more meaningful when you search only in the files tracked by git. To open files at the given line which is a search result of git grep in vim you will need the fugitive plugin, then
:copen
:Ggrep pattern
Will give you the list in a buffer and you can choose to open files from your git grep results.
In this particular example:
vim SearchToUser.java +170

Linux command to list all available commands and aliases

Is there a Linux command that will list all available commands and aliases for this terminal session?
As if you typed 'a' and pressed tab, but for every letter of the alphabet.
Or running 'alias' but also returning commands.
Why? I'd like to run the following and see if a command is available:
ListAllCommands | grep searchstr
You can use the bash(1) built-in compgen
compgen -c will list all the commands you could run.
compgen -a will list all the aliases you could run.
compgen -b will list all the built-ins you could run.
compgen -k will list all the keywords you could run.
compgen -A function will list all the functions you could run.
compgen -A function -abck will list all the above in one go.
Check the man page for other completions you can generate.
To directly answer your question:
compgen -ac | grep searchstr
should do what you want.
Add to .bashrc
function ListAllCommands
{
echo -n $PATH | xargs -d : -I {} find {} -maxdepth 1 \
-executable -type f -printf '%P\n' | sort -u
}
If you also want aliases, then:
function ListAllCommands
{
COMMANDS=`echo -n $PATH | xargs -d : -I {} find {} -maxdepth 1 \
-executable -type f -printf '%P\n'`
ALIASES=`alias | cut -d '=' -f 1`
echo "$COMMANDS"$'\n'"$ALIASES" | sort -u
}
There is the
type -a mycommand
command which lists all aliases and commands in $PATH where mycommand is used. Can be used to check if the command exists in several variants. Other than that... There's probably some script around that parses $PATH and all aliases, but don't know about any such script.
The others command didn't work for me on embedded systems, because they require bash or a more complete version of xargs (busybox was limited).
The following commands should work on any Unix-like system.
List by folder :
ls $(echo $PATH | tr ':' ' ')
List all commands by name
ls $(echo $PATH | tr ':' ' ') | grep -v '/' | grep . | sort
Use "which searchstr". Returns either the path of the binary or the alias setup if it's an alias
Edit:
If you're looking for a list of aliases, you can use:
alias -p | cut -d= -f1 | cut -d' ' -f2
Add that in to whichever PATH searching answer you like. Assumes you're using bash..
Try this script:
#!/bin/bash
echo $PATH | tr : '\n' |
while read e; do
for i in $e/*; do
if [[ -x "$i" && -f "$i" ]]; then
echo $i
fi
done
done
For Mac users (find doesn't have -executable and xargs doesn't have -d):
echo $PATH | tr ':' '\n' | xargs -I {} find {} -maxdepth 1 -type f -perm '++x'
Alternatively, you can get a convenient list of commands coupled with quick descriptions (as long as the command has a man page, which most do):
apropos -s 1 ''
-s 1 returns only "section 1" manpages which are entries for executable programs.
'' is a search for anything. (If you use an asterisk, on my system, bash throws in a search for all the files and folders in your current working directory.)
Then you just grep it like you want.
apropos -s 1 '' | grep xdg
yields:
xdg-desktop-icon (1) - command line tool for (un)installing icons to the desktop
xdg-desktop-menu (1) - command line tool for (un)installing desktop menu items
xdg-email (1) - command line tool for sending mail using the user's preferred e-mail composer
xdg-icon-resource (1) - command line tool for (un)installing icon resources
xdg-mime (1) - command line tool for querying information about file type handling and adding descriptions for new file types
xdg-open (1) - opens a file or URL in the user's preferred application
xdg-screensaver (1) - command line tool for controlling the screensaver
xdg-settings (1) - get various settings from the desktop environment
xdg-user-dir (1) - Find an XDG user dir
xdg-user-dirs-update (1) - Update XDG user dir configuration
The results don't appear to be sorted, so if you're looking for a long list, you can throw a | sort | into the middle, and then pipe that to a pager like less/more/most. ala:
apropos -s 1 '' | sort | grep zip | less
Which returns a sorted list of all commands that have "zip" in their name or their short description, and pumps that the "less" pager. (You could also replace "less" with $PAGER and use the default pager.)
Try to press ALT-? (alt and question mark at the same time). Give it a second or two to build the list. It should work in bash.
Here's a solution that gives you a list of all executables and aliases. It's also portable to systems without xargs -d (e.g. Mac OS X), and properly handles paths with spaces in them.
#!/bin/bash
(echo -n $PATH | tr : '\0' | xargs -0 -n 1 ls; alias | sed 's/alias \([^=]*\)=.*/\1/') | sort -u | grep "$#"
Usage: myscript.sh [grep-options] pattern, e.g. to find all commands that begin with ls, case-insensitive, do:
myscript -i ^ls
It's useful to list the commands based on the keywords associated with the command.
Use: man -k "your keyword"
feel free to combine with:| grep "another word"
for example, to find a text editor:
man -k editor | grep text
shortcut method to list out all commands.
Open terminal and press two times "tab" button.
Thats show all commands in terminal
You can always to the following:
1. Hold the $PATH environment variable value.
2. Split by ":"
3. For earch entry:
ls * $entry
4. grep your command in that output.
The shell will execute command only if they are listed in the path env var anyway.
it depends, by that I mean it depends on what shell you are using. here are the constraints I see:
must run in the same process as your shell, to catch aliases and functions and variables that would effect the commands you can find, think PATH or EDITOR although EDITOR might be out of scope. You can have unexported variables that can effect things.
it is shell specific or your going off into the kernel, /proc/pid/enviorn and friends do not have enough information
I use ZSH so here is a zsh answer, it does the following 3 things:
dumps path
dumps alias names
dumps functions that are in the env
sorts them
here it is:
feed_me() {
(alias | cut -f1 -d= ; hash -f; hash -v | cut -f 1 -d= ; typeset +f) | sort
}
If you use zsh this should do it.
The problem is that the tab-completion is searching your path, but all commands are not in your path.
To find the commands in your path using bash you could do something like :
for x in echo $PATH | cut -d":" -f1; do ls $x; done
Here's a function you can put in your bashrc file:
function command-search
{
oldIFS=${IFS}
IFS=":"
for p in ${PATH}
do
ls $p | grep $1
done
export IFS=${oldIFS}
}
Example usage:
$ command-search gnome
gnome-audio-profiles-properties*
gnome-eject#
gnome-keyring*
gnome-keyring-daemon*
gnome-mount*
gnome-open*
gnome-sound-recorder*
gnome-text-editor#
gnome-umount#
gnome-volume-control*
polkit-gnome-authorization*
vim.gnome*
$
FYI: IFS is a variable that bash uses to split strings.
Certainly there could be some better ways to do this.
maybe i'm misunderstanding but what if you press Escape until you got the Display All X possibilities ?
compgen -c > list.txt && wc list.txt
Why don't you just type:
seachstr
In the terminal.
The shell will say somehing like
seacrhstr: command not found
EDIT:
Ok, I take the downvote, because the answer is stupid, I just want to know: What's wrong with this answer!!! The asker said:
and see if a command is available.
Typing the command will tell you if it is available!.
Probably he/she meant "with out executing the command" or "to include it in a script" but I cannot read his mind ( is not that I can't regularly it is just that he's wearing a
mind reading deflector )
in debian: ls /bin/ | grep "whatImSearchingFor"

Can you mass edit all files returned in a grep?

I want to mass-edit a ton of files that are returned in a grep. (I know, I should get better at sed).
So if I do:
grep -rnI 'xg_icon-*'
How do I pipe all of those files into vi?
The easiest way is to have grep return just the filenames (-l instead of -n) that match the pattern. Run that in a subshell and feed the results to Vim.
vim $(grep -rIl 'xg_icon-*' *)
A nice general solution to this is to use xargs to convert a stdout from a process like grep to an argument list.
A la:
grep -rIl 'xg_icon-*' | xargs vi
if you use vim and the -p option, it will open each file in a tab, and you can switch between them using gt or gT, or even the mouse if you have mouse support in the terminal
You can do it without any processing of the grep output! This will even enable you to go the the right line (using :help quickfix commands, eg. :cn or :cw). So, if you are using bash or zsh:
vim -q &lt(grep foo *.c)
if what you want to edit is similar across all files, then no point using vi to do it manually. (although vi can be scripted as well), hypothetically, it looks something like this, since you never mention what you want to edit
grep -rnI 'xg_icon-*' | while read FILE
do
sed -i.bak 's/old/new/g' $FILE # (or other editing commands, eg awk... )
done
vi `grep -l -i findthisword *`

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