It would be nice to post multi-line shell commands along with an editable one-line version of them

Question

Maybe it's not that important, but I think it's worth a quick mention here on meta. Multi-line shell commands are annoying to deal with. Here's a blatant example:

find . -type f | \
while read -r filepath; \
do echo "$filepath"; \
done

This is a nice way to present a command, but at the same time it goes to the detriment of the command's usability. For example, try, when using it, to change something other than the last line without ending up copy-pasting each single line.

I think it would be nice if such commands would be posted along with an editable one-line version of them, for the ease of copy-paste-edit-run them directly.

Answer 1

I propose that we leave them as-is, and teach the users to avoid the insanity of editing complex commands directly in the shell. Bash, for one, allows us to edit the current command in an editor by pressing CtrlxCtrle (via the readline library).

Answer 2

There is also ESCV on some ksh (I think about HP-UX).

• you must be in vi mode (set -o vi).

(edit in post because of format)

terminal is gnome-terminal, LTS 14.04.2

#stty -a
speed 38400 baud; rows 24; columns 80; line = 0;
intr = ^C; quit = ^\; erase = ^?; kill = ^U; eof = ^D; eol = M-^?; eol2 = M-^?;
swtch = M-^?; start = ^Q; stop = ^S; susp = ^Z; rprnt = ^R; werase = ^W;
lnext = ^V; flush = ^O; min = 1; time = 0;
-parenb -parodd cs8 hupcl -cstopb cread -clocal -crtscts
-ignbrk brkint -ignpar -parmrk -inpck -istrip -inlcr -igncr icrnl ixon -ixoff
-iuclc ixany imaxbel iutf8
opost -olcuc -ocrnl onlcr -onocr -onlret -ofill -ofdel nl0 cr0 tab0 bs0 vt0 ff0
isig icanon iexten echo echoe echok -echonl -noflsh -xcase -tostop -echoprt
echoctl echoke

what i did: enter a two line command

ls |
wc -l

run the command,

• then ESCk, this recall the command in one line, with a ^J

• then ESCv, this call

  • vi, with command on two lines (HP-UX),
  • nano with command on one line (Ubuntu).