Author: sam

Top Ten TED Talks

I realize I’m way late on getting this published, but it’s just so good I don’t mind being late.

I saw this on Boing Boing and I don’t really have time to add a lot to it right now, so this one goes out to the folks who can’t handle the traffic of megablogs like BB. Every one of these is simply great. Well worth your time.

Bash & Screen

You may be familiar with my tutorial on getting your ssh-agent to work inside screen. If not, have a look.

There’s always room for improvements! Here’s an excerpt from my current .bash_profile:

function Attach(){
    grabssh
    if [[ -z "${1}" ]] ; then
        local n=`screen -wipe | egrep -i 'attached|detached' | wc -l`
        if [[ "${n}" -gt 1 ]]; then
            check_screen
            return
        fi
    fi
    echo screen -d -R ${*}
    screen -d -R ${*}
}

check_screen () {
  # Look in the path?
    type screen > /dev/null 2>&1
    if [[ ${?} = 0 ]]; then
        tmp=0
        echo
        for scr in `screen -wipe | egrep -i 'attached|detached' | awk '{print $1"_"$2}'`
        do
            echo "Screen available: ${scr}"
            if [[ ${tmp} -eq 0 ]] ; then
                myscreen=${scr%_*}
            fi
            tmp=$(($tmp+1))
        done
        if [[ -n "${myscreen}" ]] ; then
            echo
            echo "Enter to attach to ${myscreen},"
            echo "'n' to move on,"
            echo "unique bits to attach elsewhere"
            read eon
            if [[ -z "${eon}" ]] ; then
                [[ -z "${myscreen}" ]] && return
                eon=${myscreen}
            fi
            if [[ "${eon}" != 'n' ]] ; then
                Attach ${eon}
            fi
        fi
    fi
}

[[ -n "$PS1" ]] && check_screen

If screen(s) exist, I’m presented with a list of them on login. I’m then able to hit return for a default, or type in which of them I wish to resume.

If I don’t want to resume any screen I can simply hit ‘n’ and go on about my day.

The Attach and check_screen functions are actually in a different file that is sourced by .bashrc and conditionally by .bash_login. This allows the functions to be used in non-login shells (in local terminal windows for example).