filename cycling according to age, not name

filename cycling according to age, not name

[Kai Grossjohann]

Normally, I'm happy with the normal filename completion behavior of
zsh.  (After I've customized it to my liking.)  But from time to
time, I would like to say "give me the newest file under the foo
directory".

Is there a way to do this?

The ideal would be that I enter a partial filename (say "foo/") and
then hit a key, and it inserts the newest file in that directory
("foo/x"), and then I hit the key again and it replaces the filename
with the second-youngest ("foo/a").  Right now, the TAB key does
something similar, but it sorts by filename, not by age.

Right now, I have a function which does { ls -lt "$@" | head -15; }
and then I copy and paste, but I'm sure it can be done in a more
convenient manner.

Kai

Re: filename cycling according to age, not name

[Kai Grossjohann]

Kai Grossjohann <kai@emptydomain.de> writes:

> Normally, I'm happy with the normal filename completion behavior of
> zsh.  (After I've customized it to my liking.)

I forgot to include my zsh completion customization.  This is zsh
4.2.0.

Kai

# The following lines were added by compinstall

zstyle ':completion:*' auto-description 'specify %d'
zstyle ':completion:*' completer _expand _complete _correct
zstyle ':completion:*' completions 1
zstyle ':completion:*' format 'Completing %d'
zstyle ':completion:*' glob 1
zstyle ':completion:*' list-colors ''
zstyle ':completion:*' list-prompt %SAt %p: Hit TAB for more, or the character to insert%s
zstyle ':completion:*' matcher-list '' 'm:{a-z}={A-Z}' 'r:|[._-/]=** r:|=**' 'l:|=* r:|=*'
zstyle ':completion:*' max-errors 3 numeric
zstyle ':completion:*' menu select=long
zstyle ':completion:*' select-prompt %SScrolling active: current selection at %p%s
zstyle ':completion:*' substitute 1
zstyle ':completion:*' verbose true
zstyle :compinstall filename '/home/kgr/.zshrc'

autoload -U compinit
compinit
# End of lines added by compinstall

Re: filename cycling according to age, not name

[Kai Grossjohann]

J <jean.chalard@laposte.net> writes:

> - If you want this only occasionnally on a set of commands, you can't
>   resort to the last method. You may use directly the globbing pattern
>   I indicated, plus a range indicator : *(om[1]) is the last modified
>   file in the directory, *(om[2]) the second last one, and *(om[1,2])
>   the two first ones, most recent first. Then you can define a global
>   alias for it, and/or bind a key to this in zle.

This sounds as if

    less log.a/*(om[1])

would show me the newest file in that directory.  That is not what
I'm looking for, but not too bad, either.  Hm.  Perhaps a function
"lessnew" expecting a directory and an optional number would do the
trick.

But if somebody knows the exact feature I was asking for, that would
be better.

Kai

Re: filename cycling according to age, not name

[Bart Schaefer]

On Wed, 30 Jun 2004, Kai Grossjohann wrote:

> I would like [completion to] "give me the newest file under the foo
> directory".
> 
> Is there a way to do this?

Get the _path_files completion function file out of the latest CVS version 
of zsh so you have a working copy (it became broken in 4.2.0 because of an 
unrelated change).  Then set the file-sort zstyle.