this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2024
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Somewhat OT, but some commands can be annoyingly inconsistent and/or confusing as well. Examples:
cp
requires the-r
flag to copy directories recursively, whilemv
does not need any additional flags.find
searches for files in real-time based on various criteria, whilelocate
uses a pre-built database to find files quickly. I know they have separate use cases, but for beginners...The
zip
syntax is straightforward for both archiving and compressing. For example,ยzip archive.zip file1 file2
. Thetar
syntax on the other hand is confusing, especially when adding compression. I mean, look at this bad boy:tar -czvf archive.tar.gz file1 file2
.Wonder if I should post this under [email protected]. ๐
find
is also just a fucking mess in terms of UX. The fact that the ordering of positional and optional arguments are so strongly tied to each other has always driven me fucking bonkers. Nowadays, I installfd
everywhere I can and tell people to switch to it and never look back.locate
is nice and all, but I always forget to update the db and I don't want it populating in the background.tar
doesn't bug me as much, provided you use unix or GNU style options.tar xvf foo.tar
is just icky and less readable thantar -xvf foo.tar
. I will happily concede that it's not very ergonomic though. I used to rely on things likedtrx
(short for Do The Right eXtraction) because it was such a pain to remember the options fortar
/unrar
/unzip
/7z
.You reminded me of
fd
. Thank you!I got accustomed to the options for
tar
and7z
. forfind
, I just pipe it togrep
or useless
to search for something. It just takes time the first time you run itDitto for
tar
andunrar
, although I deal with.7z
so infrequently that I have to look at the manual every time I use it.find
's fucked up argument handling really becomes a problem for me when I want to use it in a complex pipeline or when using the-exec
flag. I've spent far less time debugging in those situations since switching tofd
. I won't yuck the yum of folks who are comfortable and likefind
, but I feel that we probably have more approachable alternatives for new users.I learned the proper meaning of tar flags a long time ago, but then I accidentally saw a post somewhere describing "czf" and "xzf" as acronyms in german accent: "Create Ze File!" and "Xtract Ze File!" and now everytime I use tar in the simpler ways I hear in my head a german voice shouting these words as I type the flags.
Awesome. Now I have the shouting German in my head too.
Zank you!
Tlist Ze File!
lisT Ze File!
but how would you mv something without moving all it contains?
is there a non -r use case? ๐ค
I see it as: mv is just renaming a file, in this case a directory file, with a different full name (path)
perhaps file system just requires unlinking and relinking to move? whereas when you make a copy you want to be able to modify it independently