Make it possible to expand to the output of function

[paldepind]

In Fish it is possible to create an abbreviation that does not expand to a fixed string, but instead to the dynamic output of a function. Here is an example:

function last_history_item
    echo $history[1]
end
abbr -a !! --function last_history_item

With this abbreviation the text !! will expand into the most recently typed history entry.

As far as I can see this feature is not available in zsh-abbr. It's very useful, so I propose adding it to zsh-abbr.

I'm currently trying to port the command line utility projectdo to zsh, and it seems that I would need this feature in zsh-abbr to do so. If anyone knows of another way to achieve this in zsh I'd be interested to hear about it.

[olets]

As far as I can see this feature is not available in zsh-abbr. It's very useful, so I propose adding it to zsh-abbr.

I agree the fish abbr expansion feature is cool. I don't have plans to add it to zsh-abbr.

If anyone knows of another way to achieve this in zsh I'd be interested to hear about it.

Me too! Maybe you can parse the history command? If you come up with a solution please share it.

[qadzek]

First of all, @olets, thanks a lot for this plugin. I use it all the time. It's so much beter than aliases.

@paldepind, regarding expanding !!, setopt BANG_HIST and setopt HIST_VERIFY is not what you are looking for?

I am looking for something similar, to expand to the output of a command. I want to expand cdate to the current date, so I could type cat cdate<space>.log to view today's log file.

I managed to do it in a hacky way by having a cron job regulary run a script that updates the abbreviation. I don't know if there is a better way?

By the way, it uses the new cursor placement feature, which is very handy for 'eating' the trailing space.

script

#!/usr/bin/env bash

cur_date="$(date +'%F')"
abbr_file="${HOME}/.config/zsh-abbr/user-abbreviations"

sed -i '/cdate/d' "$abbr_file"
echo 'abbr -g "cdate"="'"$cur_date"'%"' >> "$abbr_file"

# Add cron job if not present yet
if ! grep -qs 'insert-current-date' < <(crontab -l); then
  # shellcheck disable=2016
  cron_line='0 * * * * $HOME/dotfiles/zsh/insert-current-date-abbreviation.sh'
  (crontab -l 2>/dev/null; echo "$cron_line") | crontab -
  printf "Added cron job to regularly replace 'cdate' abbreviation\n"
fi

exit 0

[olets]

thanks a lot for this plugin. I use it all the time.
the new cursor placement feature, which is very handy

Great to hear, my pleasure!

to expand to the output of a command

Is there a reason you can't use the date command in the expansion itself?

Sticking with your current model,

# zshrc
ABBR_SET_EXPANSION_CURSOR=1
ABBR_LINE_CURSOR_MARKER=%ABBR_CURSOR% # or anything other than its default `%`

# terminal
abbr cdate="\$(date +'%F')%ABBR_CURSOR%"
cat cdate[SPACE].log

Fwiw in that model I'd personally pick something shorter than cdate, like d, but I'd probably go with a more extreme model (save those keystrokes! 😅)

abbr c="cat \$(date +'%F').log"
c[ENTER] # expands to `cat $(date +'%F').log` and runs the command

[qadzek]

Thanks for your suggestions.

Is there a reason you can't use the date command in the expansion itself?

I wasn't aware that this was possible. I tried, but it didn't work, possibly because I forgot to escape that $ sign. That's why I ended up creating a clumsy Bash script 😃

I can't get abbr cdate="\$(date +'%F')%ABBR_CURSOR%" working. I'm not sure if I understand everything correctly, but I believe that I can't use the default % marker because it will conflict with the % in the date command. Changing ABBR_LINE_CURSOR_MARKER didn't seem to make a difference, modifying ABBR_EXPANSION_CURSOR_MARKER did. I opted for the ^ character.

It looks like this works:

# zshrc
ABBR_SET_EXPANSION_CURSOR=1
ABBR_EXPANSION_CURSOR_MARKER=^

# terminal
abbr -g cdate="\$(date +'%F')^"

[olets]

Nice!

I'm not sure if I understand everything correctly, but I believe that I can't use the default % marker because it will conflict with the % in the date command

Exactly, without customizing the marker if you had

abbr -g cdate="\$(date +'%F')%"

then

cdate[SPACE]

would give you

$(date +'[CURSOR HERE]F')%

Changing ABBR_LINE_CURSOR_MARKER didn't seem to make a difference, modifying ABBR_EXPANSION_CURSOR_MARKER did.

Hm ABBR_EXPANSION_CURSOR_MARKER defaults to ABBR_LINE_CURSOR_MARKER so setting just ABBR_LINE_CURSOR_MARKER ought to set them both. But setting ABBR_EXPANSION_CURSOR_MARKER is clearer anyway 👍