Re: mv command usability: rename file and create dest dir

[Sergey Ponomarev]

Workaround: use Brace Expansion:
mv /tmp/{file1,.bak}
or
mv /tmp/{file1,.bak}

It wasn't intuitive, that's why I didn't figure it out in the first place.
Autocomplete doesn't work, but this is a bash issue.

Still, the placeholder would be kind of more clear but it's an additional
feature so you probably WONTFIX it.



On Sat, Jul 1, 2023 at 7:23 PM Sergey Ponomarev <stokito@gmail.com> wrote:

> Thank you for the fast response. Nice tricks, didn't know about the
> direxpand. Probably most regular users don't know either :(
> As you may see, even with a workaround this usability can be improved.
> So what about having the simple solution in place?
> 1. Use placeholder like asterisk to refer the source dir inside of the
> dest dir
> 2. Use -F arg to create directory if not exists
>
> Have a nice weekend
>
> On Sat, Jul 1, 2023 at 6:44 PM Glenn Golden <gdg@zplane.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Jul 1, 2023, at 09:03, Bernhard Voelker wrote:
>> > On 7/1/23 14:12, Sergey Ponomarev wrote:
>> >  > To rename a file a user need to use mv command and specify the DEST
>> dir:
>> >  >
>> >  >      mv /some/very/long/path/file /some/very/long/path/
>> >  >
>> >  > This makes it not so easy to use when typing a command but also
>> makes a
>> >  > script line longer.
>> >
>> > Assuming you meant
>> >
>> >    $ mv /some/very/long/path/file /some/very/long/path/file2
>> >
>> > as in the other example - this could be done with:
>> >
>> >    $ cd /some/very/long/path && mv file file2
>> >
>> > or (with GNU coreutils' env):
>> >
>> >    $ env -C /some/very/long/path mv file file2
>> >
>> > Have a nice day,
>> > Berny
>>
>> If you use bash and if your long paths are consistent (i.e. often
>> referring
>> to the same source or destination each time) then another approach is to
>> just
>> enable the bash 'direxpand' option, define some short envars in your
>> .bash_profile or .bashrc, and use those to facilitate commandline (and
>> script) operations, e.g.
>>
>>   export p1=/long/path/to/some/frequently/accessed/directory
>>   export p2=/another/long/path/to/a/frequently/accessed/directory
>>
>> Then, for cmdline ops, just typing
>>
>>   $ mv $a/<tab>
>>
>> immediately expands $a (inline on the commandline) to
>>
>>   $ mv /long/path/to/some/frequently/accessed/directory/
>>
>> and you can then tack on "$b" (or any other destination).
>>
>> The 'direxpand' option provides nice immediate feedback that the envar you
>> selected is the correct one (among, presumably, several 1-letter envars
>> you've defined like this for various long paths of interest.)
>>
>> I use this approach frequently in my own workflow when dealing with
>> annoyingly long but consistent paths.
>>
>> Glenn
>>
>>
>>
>
> --
> Sergey Ponomarev <https://linkedin.com/in/stokito>,
> stokito.com
>


-- 
Sergey Ponomarev <https://linkedin.com/in/stokito>,
stokito.com