Re: Tips, Tricks and favorites

From: Jean Lutrin (jeanlutrin_at_yahoo.fr)
Date: 04/21/04 

Date: 20 Apr 2004 15:54:06 -0700

> I'm trying to compile a list of favorite tips,
> tricks and favorite little programs that different
> people use every day that are time savers or just
> easier/quicker ways to do things.

Hi there,

I very often need to check the spelling of a single
word and I didn't know how "ispell" (or another
utility) would allow me to do this.

So I decided to create a little script that would
be *very* quick to use (faster than any kind
of "ispell" command call, because the script has
a two-letters name ;)

There were probably much simpler way to do it, but
nothing can be faster than the way I invoke it.

For checking french spelling of a single word, I
just call the command like that :

or septambre

Then ispell opens up and shows that I should write
the word "septembre" instead of "septambre" (stupid
example, I know how to write this word in french ;)

If ispell doesn't open up, then the word is
probably spelled correctly.

Here my little script (called "or" for "orthographe"
which means "spelling" in french): 

---
#!/bin/bash
 
NOMTEMP=generatedByORScript$(date '+%Y%s').tmp
echo $1 > /mnt/ramdisk/NOMTEMP
ispell -d french /mnt/ramdisk/NOMTEMP
rm /mnt/ramdisk/NOMTEMP
---
This is on a Linux system which has a ramdisk activated (and
mounted under /mnt/ramdisk/, obviously) accessible to all
users.
I'm sure there's a smarter way to write the script (I searched
a little bit, back in the days, when I felt the need for this
script, but didn't find, so I decided to create a temporary
file), but I can hardly think of a faster way to obtain the same
result ;)
This is one script I use everyday.
:)
If you are interested, I also use a colored prompt (changing
the color of the last character -- "#" or "$" according to
the user logged in : "red" for root, gree for local
users, ...). This really helps to locate the prompt when some
command outputs several lines. 
I also use a little trick (not mine) to keep only the last
30 characters from the full path name in the shell prompt, so
the commands I enter don't get "wrapped" on the next line
(unless they are really lloonngg ;)
Just drop me an email if you want them,
 Jean

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