Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!pasteur!agate!labrea!lindy!eirik@lurch.stanford.edu
From: eirik@lurch.stanford.edu (Eirik Fuller)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: simple question about mv
Summary: I like one-liners
Keywords: MSDOS: just say no
Message-ID: <1846@lindy.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 30 Jan 89 07:09:55 GMT
References: <18230@adm.BRL.MIL> <1989Jan28.203519.3521@lsuc.uucp>
Sender: news@lindy.Stanford.EDU
Reply-To: eirik@lurch.stanford.edu (Eirik Fuller)
Organization: InterViews/Allegro group, Stanford University
Lines: 29
In-reply-to: dave@lsuc.uucp (David Sherman)

In article <1989Jan28.203519.3521@lsuc.uucp>, dave@lsuc (David Sherman) writes:
)  ...
) $ ls *.flip > junk
) $ ed junk
) g/.flip/s///
) g/.*/s//mv &.flip &.flop/p
) w
) q
) $ sh -x junk
) 
)  ...
) 
) The point is that you can see what the mv commands look like,
) in the editor, before you shovel them at the shell.  It's reassuring.
) Note also the sh -x, which lets you watch the commands as they run.
) ...

I agree with the general strategy of constructing commands on the fly
and, when they look right, feeding them to a shell.  However, I don't
see the need for a junk file; what's wrong with pipes?

I would have done this as

ls *.flip | sed -e 's/\(.*\)flip$/mv \1flip \1flop/'

When I'm happy with the output (after the usual half-dozen
iterations), I say (in csh)

!! | sh -x