David Korn wrote:
> cc: ksh93-integration-discuss at opensolaris.org
> Subject: Re: [ksh93-integration-discuss] migrating from tcsh to ksh93
> --------
>
>
>> However, there are a couple of behaviors of tcsh that I don't know how
>> to make ksh93 reproduce.
>>
>> 1) bindkey ' ' magic-space
>>
>> What this does on tcsh is let me enter a command, say !! (as a
>> history command), and when I press the space bar, it expands the !! (or
>> whatever other history reference I have) so that I can then edit the
>> command. (This is useful when I want the last argument, but need to
>> make a change, or somesuch.) I rely on this a lot in tcsh, and it saves
>> me a lot of time.
>>
>>
>>
>
> What key does tcsh use for this? Where does the cursor get positioned?
>
space bar (why it is called "magic space") immediately after a
non-whitespace expands everything on the command line before it. The
cursor remains at its current position -- normally the end of the line
just after the space. (It still inserts the space, of course.)
> When compiled with the BASH option, ksh93 has the histverify option
> which sends any command that has a csh history expansion back to
> the editor for editing. Would this be the equivalent?
>
Maybe, I can't see how to use it with ksh93 on Solaris right now.
I've just discovered the "hist" command -- yeah, I'm an old-time tcsh
user (originally csh, but that was several decades ago!) so some of this
is new to me.
I still wish I had magic space though.
As an example:
% ls /some/really/longfile/name
[ I might have got that long name using tab-completion
% mv !$
[ ^cursor is here, and press space bar
[ command prompt changes ....
% mv /some/really/longfile/name
[ cursor is here ---------------^
[ enter more command text... ]
% mv /some/really/longfile/name !$
[ cursor is here -----------------^
[ press space bar, and you get ...
% mv /some/really/longfile/name /some/really/longfile/name
[ cursor is now here --------------------------------------^
[ press ESC-b twice in a row.... ]
% mv /some/really/longfile/name /some/really/longfile/name
[ cursor is now here ------------------------^
[ press ESC-d to delete "longfile"
% mv /some/really/longfile/name /some/really//name
[ cursor is now here ------------------------^
[ now change the directory name to "new"
% mv /some/really/longfile/name /some/really/new/name
[ cursor is now here ---------------------------^
While the example is fabricated, I only had to type the hideous long
file name once (and with tab completion, maybe not even once), and I was
able to quickly change one component of the path name while preserving
the rest of the file name. And, I was able to see the results while I
did the edit (WYSIWYG), so I was unlikely to make a stupid mistake (or
at least less likely) using some regex tweaking of the component.
It looks like something small, but I use this more often than you might
guess. It is a really powerful feature. Especially when you deal with
files that have really awkward or long names (such as tarball images
where the date is encoded in the file name.)
Thanks.
-- Garrett
> David Korn
> dgk at research.att.com
>
