Hi all,
Ben -> the easiest way to kick off some high powered kickarse sharing action
is to get in first. ;-) Here's one of my favourite little unobvious handy
tricks:
Everyone knows the way to start a shell script -> you put in a 'bang path'
to the shell that you want to run your script, like this:
#!/bin/sh
echo You ran this script with these parameters:
echo " $@"
But what does it actually do? Simple answer: When you execute the script (it
must have the +x bits on), the contents of the file are piped into the bang
path program, in this case, /bin/sh. So, let's put just the last two lines
of the above script into a file ('test'), and try to get sh to run it from
stdin:
$ cat test | /bin/sh -s
You ran this script with these parameters:
Or:
$ cat test | /bin/sh -s pants
You ran this script with these parameters:
pants
So, why is this cool? It means that *any program* that can take its config
or some kind of scripting from a file can be used this way -> because stdin
is (basically) a file!
Try putting this in a file, and setting the +x bit:
#!/usr/bin/screen -c
startup_message on
hardstatus on
hardstatus alwayslastline
hardstatus string "%H %=%{..} %d/%m %C%a "
When you run it, screen will run with that configuration! My normal screenrc
settings have a blue status line, have the startup_message switched off, etc
-> but not when I run this script. :-)
Now... There are a *lot* of *nix command line tools that can take their conf
settings from a file specified on the command line. Such as mutt... vim...
So many cool things you can do, and you can just run a special command and
have them set up for special purposes. :-)
Enjoy, and post the cool stuff you do with this to the SLUG list. :-)
Thanks,
- Jeff
--
linux.conf.au 2004: Adelaide, Australia http://lca2004.linux.org.au/
Echidnas, or at least the ones I've met, don't have joy. Adults very
rarely have joy. Kids have hyperkinetic nuclear joy in abundance.
--
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