Re: Simplest way to choose one of several commands

[Nikolai Weibull <now@xxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 23:49, Mikael Magnusson<mikachu@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> 2009/9/7 Baptiste Daroussin <baptiste.daroussin@xxxxxxxxx>:

>> 2009/9/7 Nikolai Weibull <now@xxxxxxxx>:

>>> Is there a simpler way of doing the following?
>>>
>>> alias ls=${${(f)"$(whence -p {g,}ls)"}[1]}' --color'
>>>
>>> I need to select gls, if thatâs whatâs installed, otherwise ls. Â(The
>>> code above assumes that at least ls is installed, which isnât a
>>> problem.)

>> all the command in path are in the associative array $commands so
>> assuming that at least ls is in the path :
>> alias ls="${commands[gls]:-$commands[ls]} --color"
>> it seems simpler to me

Ah, thanks.  I forgot about $commands.  I wish it was something
simpler, but perhaps Iâm asking for too much.

> Some meandering through the man page later:
> % echo ${${:-$commands[(R)*/(ls|cat)]}[1]}
> /bin/ls
> % echo ${${:-$commands[(R)*/(ls|cat)]}[2]}
> /bin/cat

I can one-up you on that:

$commands[(r)*/(g|)ls]

Note, though, that neither mine nor your version chooses gls over ls
if both are installed.  This just chooses whatever happens to be
first, and, Iâm guessing, it will be pretty random.