wajig commands

[Karl Schmidt]

The old would put out a one liner for each command - easy to do something like:

$ wajig commands |grep install

The new splits it into two lines with newlines inbetween - no more joy in life...

Not only did it break grepping, by adding 3x lines one can no longer shift-pgup to manually scroll
to find ones needed incantation as the standard screen buffer does not go back that far.. I can only
get back up to NEWS ... not fun if you are standing by a relay rack full of servers and need to see
some command that starts with a letter in the first half of the alphabet.

Sometimes command-line utils are left plain for good reasons..

I hate to complain - I know you were trying to improve - but ...

--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Karl Schmidt EMail Ka...@xtronics.com
Transtronics, Inc. WEB http://secure.transtronics.com
3209 West 9th Street Ph (785) 841-3089
Lawrence, KS 66049 FAX (785) 841-0434

Truth is mighty and will prevail.
There is nothing wrong with this,
except that it ain't so.
--Mark Twain

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Tshepang Lekhonkhobe]

On Sat, Apr 6, 2013 at 6:23 AM, Karl Schmidt <ka...@xtronics.com> wrote:
> The old would put out a one liner for each command - easy to do something
> like:
>
> $ wajig commands |grep install
>
> The new splits it into two lines with newlines inbetween - no more joy in
> life...
>
> Not only did it break grepping, by adding 3x lines one can no longer
> shift-pgup to manually scroll to find ones needed incantation as the
> standard screen buffer does not go back that far.. I can only get back up to
> NEWS ... not fun if you are standing by a relay rack full of servers and
> need to see some command that starts with a letter in the first half of the
> alphabet.

Would it be good enough if I added a switch for this, e.g. "wajig
listcommands --brief"? I am reluctant to make this default since for
many of the subcommands, there is extra info displayed (e.g. INSTALL
and WHICHPACKAGE). I am even more reluctant because some of the
command descriptions span more than one line. How would you like that
to be handled?

[Karl Schmidt]

The few that span could me multiple lines with the extra lines indented - or just keep it brief.

I don't like lots of switches - one of the beauties of wajig was the simple
$ wajig <command verb> <object >
structure.

If you want a long fancy list with formatting , put it in the man page. The command command was just
to refresh memory, not full documentation.

[Tshepang Lekhonkhobe]

On Mon, Apr 8, 2013 at 1:46 AM, Karl Schmidt <ka...@xtronics.com> wrote:
> On 04/06/2013 01:49 AM, Tshepang Lekhonkhobe wrote:
>>
>> On Sat, Apr 6, 2013 at 6:23 AM, Karl Schmidt<ka...@xtronics.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> The old would put out a one liner for each command - easy to do something
>>> like:
>>>
>>> $ wajig commands |grep install
>>>
>>> The new splits it into two lines with newlines inbetween - no more joy
>>> in
>>> life...
>>>
>>> Not only did it break grepping, by adding 3x lines one can no longer
>>> shift-pgup to manually scroll to find ones needed incantation as the
>>> standard screen buffer does not go back that far.. I can only get back up
>>> to
>>> NEWS ... not fun if you are standing by a relay rack full of servers and
>>> need to see some command that starts with a letter in the first half of
>>> the
>>> alphabet.

You can always do "wajig commands | pager", then search through that instead.

>> Would it be good enough if I added a switch for this, e.g. "wajig
>> listcommands --brief"? I am reluctant to make this default since for
>> many of the subcommands, there is extra info displayed (e.g. INSTALL
>> and WHICHPACKAGE). I am even more reluctant because some of the
>> command descriptions span more than one line. How would you like that
>> to be handled?
>>
>
>
> The few that span could me multiple lines with the extra lines indented - or
> just keep it brief.

That's messy. Would rather leave it the way it is.

> I don't like lots of switches - one of the beauties of wajig was the simple
> $ wajig <command verb> <object >
> structure.

You can always use aliases. I use them a lot. I got dozens. Example:

$ alias ii
alias ii='wajig install --noauth'

Am just lazy to type.

> If you want a long fancy list with formatting , put it in the man page. The
> command command was just to refresh memory, not full documentation.

FWIW, full documentation for each command is reachable by using the
--help switch (e.g. "wajig commands --help").

[Karl Schmidt]

On 04/08/2013 04:03 AM, Tshepang Lekhonkhobe wrote:

> You can always do "wajig commands | pager", then search through that instead.

Not the same as being able to grep the line of a string.

I don't want to page through commands - I just want to trigger a memory..

The old way you can do things like this:

$ wajig commands| grep depend
auto-remove Remove packages installed automatically as dependencies
build-depend Retrieve packages required to build listed packages
dependents List of packages which depend/recommend/suggest the package
fix-install Perform apt-get -f install (to fix broken dependencies)
force Install packages and ignore file overwrites and depends
help Print documentation (detail depends on --verbose)
purge-depend Purge package and those it depend on and not required by others
recursive Download package and any packages it depends on
remove-depend Remove package and its dependees not required by others

On a new system:

# wajig commands |grep depend
Remove unused dependency packages
from them. This also installs the needed build-dependencies if needed.
Install build-dependencies for given packages
Display packages which have some form of dependency on the given package
Types of dependencies:
Fix an install interrupted by broken dependencies
Fix and install even though there are missing dependencies
Install packages and ignore file overwrites and depends
multiple packages or when a dependency is not installed for
* specifying a .deb file will also try to satisfy that deb's dependencies;
Install a package and its Suggests dependencies
Display the packages which build-depend on the given package
Download a package and all its dependencies
Display packages that were installed via Recommends dependency
and have no dependents

The new way is a poor cheat-sheet and poor documentation.

AND the all caps as listed in commands don't work for a copy-paste to plug into a command line..

>
> You can always use aliases. I use them a lot. I got dozens. Example:
>
> $ alias ii
> alias ii='wajig install --noauth'

I work with dozens of machines and just have bare shells - probably not an unusual situation for a
wajig user..

>> If you want a long fancy list with formatting , put it in the man page. The
>> command command was just to refresh memory, not full documentation.
>
> FWIW, full documentation for each command is reachable by using the
> --help switch (e.g. "wajig commands --help").

Again - that makes my point - the commands command was not supposed to be in-depth documentation -
just a cheat-sheet for use when standing in a puddle of water working on a server with a 7"
screen... Remember - wajig is a tool for non GUI systems where we are just managing systems - there
are GUI tools with all sorts of pretty documentation already around.

I suppose I sound picky - but I hate to see wajig go backwards..

[Tshepang Lekhonkhobe]

> AND the all caps as listed in commands don't work for a copy-paste to plug
> into a command line..

finally something I agree with you about :)