🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1990Sep8.054623.3822@sj.ate.slb.com> fabrice@sj.ate.slb.com writes:
> I use the following C-shell alias to get the output of a command into
> the file it applies to. The command should be of the form "<cmd line> <file>".
> 	alias apply  \!\* \> /tmp/apply.\$\$ \; cp /tmp/apply.\$\$ \!\$

Much better is

  % alias transform '(rm \!:1;\!:2* > \!:1) < \!:1'

which is used as, e.g., % transform foo.c grep -v '^/\*###' to strip
comments inserted by error(1). It doesn't demand a temporary file. It
can release the disk space of the original as soon as the command closes
it. And it doesn't pass foo.c as an argument if the command is just a
filter.

---Dan

In article <1990Sep8.054623.3822@sj.ate.slb.com> fabrice@sj.ate.slb.com writes:
>In article <1727@pbhyd.PacBell.COM> rjw@PacBell.COM (Rod Williams) writes:
>>>                          ...suppose I want to sort a file
>>>and place the result in the same file without destroying it,
>>
>>Doesn't 'sort' allow you to do this already in one easy step?
>>
>>	sort -o<file> <samefile>
>>
>>...or did I misunderstand the question?
>
>I use the following C-shell alias to get the output of a command into
>the file it applies to. The command should be of the form "<cmd line> <file>".
>
>	alias apply  \!\* \> /tmp/apply.\$\$ \; cp /tmp/apply.\$\$ \!\$

You will probably wish to add the following to your alias: \; rm /tmp/apply.\$\$
Without it, you may end up with quite a lot of files in the /tmp directory,
and depending upon the output of the command, this can begin to add up.

Before anyone writes:  "Just use 'mv'"  there is a very valid reason for using
'cp' as opposed to 'mv':  'cp' preserves the permissions on the file you are
copying to, whereas 'mv' does not (ie:  Mv makes the destination file the
same permissions as the source file, cp preserves the permissions on the
destination file).  If you do not believe me, then experiment on your own by 
setting umask, creating a couple of files and making the permissions different
and then using 'mv' and 'cp' combinations and see what happens.

		-- Gordon.
-- 
Gordon C. Galligher	9127 Potter Rd. #2E	Des. Plaines, Ill.    60016-4881
     telxon!ping%gorpong@uunet.uu.net (not tested)  (Is this even legal??)
     ...!uunet!telxon!ping!gorpong      (tested)    (And it works!)
"It seems to me, Golan, that the advance of civilization is nothing but an
 exercise in the limiting of privacy." - Janov Pelorat -- _Foundation's Edge_

In article <8147:Sep903:14:3990@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein) writes:
} In article <1990Sep8.054623.3822@sj.ate.slb.com> fabrice@sj.ate.slb.com writes:
} > 	alias apply  \!\* \> /tmp/apply.\$\$ \; cp /tmp/apply.\$\$ \!\$
} 
} Much better is
} 
}   % alias transform '(rm \!:1;\!:2* > \!:1) < \!:1'

Of course, if you WANT to put the file name at the end rather than at
the beginning, you can use (sticking with the original alias name):

    % alias apply '( rm \!:$ ; \!:1- > \!:$ ) < \!:$'

but I agree that listing the file first is clearer.

The one problem I see with this is that there ought to be a way to abort
if the rm doesn't happen.  E.g.,

    % transform foo.c grep -v '^/\*###'
    rm: override protection 444 for foo.c?

Unfortunately, no matter what answer is given to this question, "rm"
exits with status 0.  In this particular case the grep command will
fail (on an "n" response) due to lack of write permission on foo.c,
but there are other cases where a problem might occur if the file isn't
rm'd.

Using "mv" would solve this problem, but requires a decision of where
to move the file.
-- 
Bart Schaefer						schaefer@cse.ogi.edu