making my script work with vi

Plankton has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Friends,

I am trying to write a simple script that I could use while editting files with vi. One of the things I like about vi is that you can do things like :1,$ !program. Here's a demostration of what I want to be able to do ...

bash-2.05b$ vi junk

NOTES
doc
backup
notes
scripts
cpio_out
bashrc
~
~
~
:1,$ !sort
backup
bashrc
cpio_out
doc
notes
NOTES
scripts
:wq
[download]

In the above example I used sort to modify my file. I want to be able to do this with this script ...

bash-2.05b$ cat twc
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
 
my $file = shift;
if ( !defined( $file ) ) {
        print "usage: $0 <dir|file>\n";
        exit 0;
}

if ( ! -e $file ) {
        print  "#$file\n";
} else {
        print "$file\n";
}
[download]

... but when I do something like this ...

bash-2.05b$ vi junk
backup
bashrc
cpio_out
doc
notes
NOTES
scripts
~
~
~
:1,$ !./twc
[download]

... I get this ...

usage: ./twc <dir|file>
[download]

How should I be handling the input in my Perl script?

Plankton: 1% Evil, 99% Hot Gas.

Comment on making my script work with vi Select or Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: making my script work with vi by Paladin (Vicar) on Jul 15, 2004 at 18:13 UTC
When you use ! with vi, it sends the text to the program on STDIN, and replaces it with whatever the program outputs on STDOUT. Try something like this: `#!/usr/bin/perl -w use strict; while (<STDIN>) { chomp; if ( ! -e ) { print "#$_\n"; } else { print "$_\n"; } }` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re: making my script work with vi by gmax (Abbot) on Jul 15, 2004 at 18:18 UTC
As you can learn from your example with sort, the external command takes your lines from the standard input. Change your script this way: `#!/usr/bin/perl -w use strict; while (<>) { chomp; print "file is [$_]\n"; if ( ! -e $_ ) { print "#$_\n"; } else { print "$_\n"; } }` [download] However, if your Vim has direct Perl support, you can execute something like this: `:1,$ perldo s/^/#/ unless -e $_` [download] See Editing features for advanced users for an explanation and more examples on similar features. _ _ _ _ (_\|\| \| \|(_\|>< _\|	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: making my script work with vi by etcshadow (Priest) on Jul 15, 2004 at 19:59 UTC
STDIN -> STDOUT, just as the others said... You might consider just putting a `#!/usr/bin/perl -p` at the beginning of your program and thus skipping the whole `while (<STDIN>) { ... }` loop. Also, you can say `:%!program` to mean the whole file should be filtered, instead of `:1,$!program`. Just a couple fewer keystrokes is all. `------------ :Wq Not an editor command: Wq` [download]	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: making my script work with vi by dave_the_m (Monsignor) on Jul 15, 2004 at 18:15 UTC
Your script should be getting its input from STDIN and writing its output to STDOUT. vi will not supply your script with any command-line parameters of its own accord. Dave.	[reply]
Re: making my script work with vi by NovMonk (Chaplain) on Jul 15, 2004 at 18:22 UTC
I asked a similar question once-- maybe the answers here might give you some more ideas. Good Luck. Pax, NovMonk	[reply]
Re: making my script work with vi by ninja_byte (Acolyte) on Jul 19, 2004 at 21:44 UTC
Disclaimer: I'm kinda new at this. Comment: Maybe this is going on because your script is expecting a filename as a command line argument. See if the script works while reading from STDIN instead/as well ..?	[reply]


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