automatical xargs (or zargs)

automatical xargs (or zargs)

[Vincent Lefevre]

Is there a way to do the following?

When globbing generates a line that is "too long" (configurable
by the user), the command is automatically replaced by one using
xargs or zargs.

-- 
Vincent Lefèvre <vincent@vinc17.org> - Web: <http://www.vinc17.org/>
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Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / SPACES project at LORIA

Re: automatical xargs (or zargs)

[Bart Schaefer]

On Aug 12, 10:28pm, Vincent Lefevre wrote:
}
} Is there a way to do the following?

Not in the general case, no.

} When globbing generates a line that is "too long" (configurable
} by the user), the command is automatically replaced by one using
} xargs or zargs.

There's no hook that's available after globbing has occurred but
before the command execution is attempted.  There's also no hook
that's available "between" commands in a pipeline, or in a compound
command line using semicolons, or in a structured loop body.  So
the closest you can come is, in an interactive shell, to override
the ZLE accept-line function, parse $BUFFER yourself, perform the
expansions, test the lengths, and reassign a rewritten BUFFER before
the line is really accepted.

This is almost certainly a lot more work than the result is worth,
and there's absolutely nothing you can do in a non-interactive
situation such as a script.