README.md

Various useful utility scripts

pedit

Use your favorite text editor to modify and update your $PATH

Installation

1. Copy or move pedit.sh to whatever permanent installation location you want.
2. Add an alias to your .profile, .bashrc, etc. that sources pedit.sh:

alias pedit='source /path/to/pedit.sh'

Usage

When you run your pedit alias from a shell, your $EDITOR will launch with a temp file containing all directories on your $PATH, one per line. Make changes to the order, remove directories, etc. When you are happy with the changes, save the file and exit the editor. Your $PATH will be updated with the new list of directories.

If you exit your editor without saving, or there are no valid entries, the $PATH is not updated.

You can optionally specify a different path-like environment variable to edit as the first argument on the command line, e.g.,

pedit PYTHONPATH

bak

Create and restore simple file/directory backups

Installation

bak is a simple bash script. Put it anywhere on your path and ensure it has executable permissions.

Usage

bak will copy a local file/directory with a timestamped suffix:

% ls -l
ls -l
total 0
-rw-r--r--  1 drootang  staff     0B Feb 17 22:53 a
-rw-r--r--  1 drootang  staff     0B Feb 17 22:53 bc
% bak a
% ls -l
total 0
-rw-r--r--  1 drootang  staff     0B Feb 17 22:53 a
-rw-r--r--  1 drootang  staff     0B Feb 17 22:53 a.240217-225351.bak
-rw-r--r--  1 drootang  staff     0B Feb 17 22:53 bc

Running bak on a bak-generated backup file will restore that backup to the original filename. If the original filename already exists, it will first be baked up.

% bak a.240217-225351.bak
% ls -l
total 0
-rw-r--r--  1 drootang  staff     0B Feb 17 22:53 a
-rw-r--r--  1 drootang  staff     0B Feb 17 22:53 a.240217-225521.bak
-rw-r--r--  1 drootang  staff     0B Feb 17 22:53 bc

Because bak uses timestamp suffixes, you can create several local backups. bak is simple and only timestamps to the second, which should be more than sufficient for its intended usage.

% bak a
% bak a
total 0
-rw-r--r--  1 drootang  staff     0B Feb 17 22:53 a
-rw-r--r--  1 drootang  staff     0B Feb 17 22:53 a.240217-225521.bak
-rw-r--r--  1 drootang  staff     0B Feb 17 22:58 a.240217-225813.bak
-rw-r--r--  1 drootang  staff     0B Feb 17 22:58 a.240217-225815.bak
-rw-r--r--  1 drootang  staff     0B Feb 17 22:53 bc

Advantages of bak over cp

bak will never overwrite anything. Unless you have cp aliased to cp -i, you run the risk of accidentally overwriting something important while using cp to manage local file versions.

When restoring a previously backed-up file, bak only requires one command where cp would require two.

Notes

The existence of this script should not be taken as an endorsement of haphazard backup strategies nor inefficient workflows. Sometimes you just need to be sure a copy of a file is around, or need quick old-school local versioning.

swap

Swap the names of two files

Installation

swap is a simple bash script. Put it anywhere on your path and ensure it has executable permissions.

Usage

swap will swap the names of two files using a local temporary file:

% ls
a.txt  b.txt
% cat a.txt
aaa
% cat b.txt
bbb
% swap a.txt b.txt
% cat a.txt
bbb
% cat b.txt
aaa

csvtab

Installation

csvtab is a simple bash script. Put it anywhere on your path and ensure it has executable permissions.

Usage

Read a CSV file into neatly organized columns into $EDITOR or vim. $EDITOR must support using - to read from stdin.

You may pass the CSV filename as an argument to csvtab or pipe it in:

% csvtab input.csv
% cat input.csv | csvtab