shell-helper

If you're like me, you're always forgetting your cute aliased utility methods you've been writing. Shell-helper solves that problem.

Shell helper shows all shell functions and aliases that have documentation comments

setup

Copy shell-helper.py and sh_best to your ~/ folder. Add to your .bashrc the following lines: (you could also put it in your .zshrc, or .bash_profile, but if you do, update the shell-help function.)

source $HOME/sh_best

# List shell functions
function shell-help {
  python ~/shell-helper.py ~/.bashrc
}

then, open up a new terminal and run shell-help

Example run

python ~/dev/scripts/shell-helper.py sh_best

Scanning functions in: /Users/jouellette/dev/projects/shell-helper/sh_best

/Users/jouellette/dev/projects/shell-helper/sh_best

many of these commands came from:
  http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/browse/sort-by-votes
  http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/6/what-are-your-favorite-command-line-features-or-tricks

  tweet                                   # Send a tweet, $1 = username, $2 = message (must be quoted)
  extract                                 # Use the proper extract command for the given file type, $1 = filename
  $ sudo !!                               # Run last command as root
  start-server-here                       # Start a simple http server in python in this directory, ... 'python -m SimpleHTTPServer'
  $ ^foo^bar                              # Run last command but replacing foo with bar
  $ !!:gs/foo/bar                         # Runs previous command replacing foo by bar every time that foo appears
  $ ctrl-x e                              # Invoke editor here
  $ <space>command                        # Invoke command without saving history
  $ 'ALT+.' or '<ESC> .'                  # Place the argument of the most recent command on the shell
  $ reset                                 # Salvage a borked terminal
  nice-mount                              # Currently mounted file systems in a nice layout, ... 'mount | column -t'
  $ echo "ls -l" | at midnight            # Execute a command at a given time
  local-access                            # start a tunnel from some machine's port 80 to your local post 2001, $1 = remote
  get-ip                                  # Get your external IP address, ... 'curl ifconfig.me'
  query-wikipedia                         # Query Wikipedia via console over DNS, $1 = wikipedia query
  output-microphone                       # output your microphone to a remote computer's speaker, $1 = remote
  $ sshfs name@server:/fldr/pth /mnt/pth  # Mount folder/filesystem through SSH

Formatting 101

To get a command to appear in shell-help, add a comment above it. So:

# comment
function funcname() {
  ...
}

will show up as:

funcname         # comment

With aliases, the alias command will also be output. So:

# comment
alias aliasname='ls -l'

Will show up as:

aliasname         # comment, 'ls -l'

If you've got a command you run a lot, but don't want to alias it, just add a function document using #? syntax. So:

# Don't forget to ls -l sometimes!
#? ls -l

Will show up as:

$ ls -l         # Don't forget to ls -l sometimes!,

Finally, if you want to output something (e.g., a header to a section of function), use:

#! Put anything here, hello world!

And it will show up in the shell helper where you added the comment, e.g.,

Put anything here, hello world!

Recursive sourcing

Shell helper will attempt to recursively source all sourced shells. This lets you organize your scripts, e.g., by topic. For example, you might split your shell scripts into .backend_sh, .frontend_sh, then source them from your bashrc.

sh_best

I included in this repo a shell script with popular shell commands that serve as examples to show how to use this utility. I use a different set of commands that are mostly work-related, but I wanted to give a realistic example. :)