Bash function to edit scripts faster

Waylon Walker - May 11 '22 - - Dev Community

I am often editing my own scripts as I develop them. I want to make a better workflow for working with scripts like this.

Currently

Currently I am combining nvim with a which subshell to etit these files like this.

for now lets use my todo command as an example

nvim `which todo`
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

First pass

On first pass I made a bash function to do exactly what I have been doing.

ewhich () {$EDITOR `which "$1"`}
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

The $1 will pass the first input to the which subshell. Now we can edit our todo script like this.

ewich todo
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Note, I use bash functions instead of aliases for things that require input.

Final State

This works fine for commands that are files, but not aliases or shell functions. Next I jumped to looking at the output of command -V $1.

  • if the command is not found, search for a file
  • if its a builtin, exit
  • if its an alias, open my ~/.alias file to that line
  • if its a function, open my ~/.alias file to that line
ewhich () { case `command -V $1` in
    "$1 not found")
        FILE=`fzf --prompt "$1 not found searching ..." --query $1`
        [ -z "$FILE" ] && echo "closing" || $EDITOR $FILE;;
    *"is a shell builtin"*)
        echo "$1 is a builtin";;
    *"is an alias"*)
        $EDITOR ~/.alias +/alias\ $1;;
    *"is a shell function"*)
        $EDITOR ~/.alias +/^$1;;
    *)
        $EDITOR `which "$1"`;;
esac
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

a bit more ergo, and less readable

To make it easier to type, at the sacrifice of readability for anyone watching I added a single character e alias to ewhich. So when I want to edit anything I just use e.

alias e=ewhich
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Results

Here is a quick screencast of how it works.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .