[kwlug-disc] ncurses file selection tool

[Khalid Baheyeldin]

I use a set of steps to do the same thing, although they are more involved.
The awk program is where it all is ...

To rename files, I generate a script like this:

ls | grep "whatever" | awk '{print "mv ", $1, $1}' > x
# Edit using vim to remove the lines for the files I want to keep
sh x

To delete files, it is like this:

ls | grep "whatever" | awk '{print "rm ", $1}' > x
# Edit using vim to remove the lines for the files I want to keep
sh x

The grep in both cases is any filter on file names.

On Thu, Jan 14, 2021 at 4:01 PM Chris Frey <cdfrey at foursquare.net> wrote:

> Thank you!  I've used the first two steps, but not the execution step.
> That was the missing piece.
>
> - Chris
>
>
> On Thu, Jan 14, 2021 at 12:52:13PM -0500, Doug Moen wrote:
> > 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.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > kwlug-disc at kwlug.org
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>
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Khalid M. Baheyeldin
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