[kwlug-disc] ncurses file selection tool

[Doug Moen]

I use a brutally primitive subset of vim.

Open a new buffer.

    :r ls

reads a list of files from the current directory into the buffer.
Then, edit the buffer into a shell script. Eg, to remove all the files,

    :%s,^,rm ,

Delete any lines that remove files you don't want to remove.
Then run the shell script:

    :w !sh

I don't general use this technique just to remove files, usually the commands are more complicated. That was just an example.

The benefit of this technique is that it is Turing complete. I can accomplish anything. I don't have to learn a new tool, and I don't run into the limitations that high level tools usually suffer from.