Tip of the day: some glob selectors

[Peter Stephenson <pws@xxxxxxx>]

Oliver wrote a section for the book on how to use the "e" glob
qualifier which made me think of some other uses.

Often I want to select a whole set of files that are newer than a given
file, for example to back up files changed since the last backup.
Here's a function to do that:

nt() {
  if [[ -n $1 ]]; then
    local NTREF=${~1}
  fi
  [[ $REPLY -nt $NTREF ]]
}

You use it as follows:

NTREF=/reference/file
ls -l *(e:nt:)

This lists all the files in the current directory newer than the
reference file.

You can also specify the reference file inline; note quotes:

ls -l *(e:'nt ~/.zshenv':)


Another use is a quick way of turning the path to a file in Cygwin into
Cygwin notation, for passing as the argument to a Windows command:

cyg() {
  reply=("$(cygpath -w $REPLY)")
}

Now

explorer ~(e:cyg:)

is enough to convert ~ to the Cygwin form.


I wonder if it's a useful addition to allow

ls -l *(+nt)
explorer ~(+cyg)

as a shorthand?  The + would swallow up, say, all characters that can
appear in an identifier (alphanumerics plus underscore) and save it as
the command.  This would mean you could even chain them: *(+nt+cyg).
With arguments you're stuck with the long syntax, however.

-- 
Peter Stephenson <pws@xxxxxxx>                  Software Engineer
CSR PLC, Churchill House, Cambridge Business Park, Cowley Road
Cambridge, CB4 0WZ, UK                          Tel: +44 (0)1223 692070


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