[a3n]

Named pipes have been rare for me, but simple process substitution is every day.

Very often I do something like this in quick succession. Command line editing makes this trivial.

  $ find . -name "*blarg*.cpp"
  # Some output that looks like what I'm looking for.
  
  # Run the same find again in a process, and grep for something.
  $ grep -i "blooey" $(find . -name "*blarg*.cpp")
  
  # Yep, those are the files I'm looking for, so dig in.
  # Note the additional -l in grep, and the nested processes.
  $ vim $(grep -il "blooey" $(find . -name "*blarg*.cpp"))

[tne]

Same here, except I typically use $(!!) to re-run the previous command. I find it faster than command-line editing.

    $ find . -name "*blarg*.cpp"
    $ grep -i "blooey" $(!!)
    $ vim $(!! -l)

Granted, you can only append new arguments and using the other ! commands will often be less practical than editing. Still, it's amazing how frequently this is sufficient.

I've always thought it'd be nice if there was a `set` option or something similar that would make bash record command lines and cache output automatically in implicit variables, so that it doesn't re-run the commands. The semantics are definitely different and you wouldn't want this enabled at all times, but for certain kinds of sessions it would be very handy.

EDIT: lazyjones beat me to it.

[vog]

Since "!!" are replaced when you hit the "up" arrow key (i.e. jump to previous command), you can go really wild with them:

https://oeis.org/A228162

[icebraining]

That's actually command substitution, not process substitution :)

[a3n]

Thanks for the correction. The unix is large and I'm so very small.

[hollerith]

And command substitution has nothing to do with pipes, named or unnamed.

[lazyjones]

> Command line editing makes this trivial.

I'm lazy, so I typically do this (2nd step) to avoid the extra key strokes necessary for editing:

  $ grep -i "blooey" $(!!)

Also very useful for avoiding editing in order to do something else with the same argument as in the previous command: !$, i.e.:

  $ foo myfile
  $ bla !$

[jbnicolai]

You could just use a pipe here though, which would also make it more easy to read. e.g.:

    $ find . -name '*blarg*.cpp' | grep -li blooey | vi -

[icebraining]

Your version searches for blooey in the filenames, not in the files themselves.

[reitanqild]

And, to try to be helpful, - seems it lacks an xargs (or similar construct)

[a3n]

I used to do it something like that, but I find it personally easier to understand the way I described it and evolved into that. I also like what I'm ultimately doing (vim/vi in this case) to be over on the left: edit whatever this mess on the right produces.