Taking notes at the command line using comment


If you spend a lot of time at the command line, then comment is a useful utility in your CLI toolbox. It appends text in a hidden file in your current directory, and also in your home directory. The text entries can be anything you like, though I tend to use it for remembering things like:

Your comments can be quickly retrieved for later reference depening on the type of search you perform (current directory or global).

Usage:
Create a comment:

comment put string

Get comments containing searchstring in current directory

comment get [-t] [searchstring]

Get comments containing searchstring globally

comment getall [-t] [searchstring]

I use a couple of aliases to abbreviate the syntax further. These live in your ~/.bash_profile.

alias cget='comment get'
alias cgeta='comment getall'
alias cput='comment put'
alias cputa='comment putall'

Examples:
Describe current directory:

cput This directory contains photos of our holiday on the beach

Put comments into a project directory:

cput Started project Newproj on 14 Feb 2007
cput Project manager John Smith extension 1234
cput Development box orpheus user/password
cput 'CVSROOT=:pserver:guest:guest@192.168.0.9:2401/cvs/newproject'

Get all comments for the current directory

cget

Get comments that contain "John" in the current directory

cget John

Get comments from any directory that contain "John"

cgeta John

Use the -t option to also display when the comments where added:

cgeta -t orpheus

Notes:
comment is a simple shell script under 1K. When a comment is put, it appends the text to a file called .comment in the current directory and also in the users home directory. The entry is prefixed with a timestamp that can optionally be displayed with the -t option. Use single quotes around your comments to avoid shell expansion on characters such as $, :, | and "

Here's the script. Save it in your PATH i.e. /usr/local/bin/comment.

#!/bin/bash
COMMENTFILE=".comment"

if [ "$1" == "get" ]; then
    if [ "$2" == "-t" ]; then
        grep -i "$3" $COMMENTFILE 2>/dev/null
    else
        grep -i "$2" $COMMENTFILE 2>/dev/null | cut -b 20- 
    fi  
        exit 0
fi
if [ "$1" == "getall" ]; then
    if [ "$2" == "-t" ]; then
        grep -i "$3" "$HOME/$COMMENTFILE" 2>/dev/null
    else
        grep -i "$2" "$HOME/$COMMENTFILE" 2>/dev/null | cut -b 20- 
    fi  
        exit 0
fi
if [ "$1" == "put" ] || [ "$1" == "putall" ]; then
        DATE=`date +'[%d-%m-%Y %H:%M]'`
        CWD=`pwd`
        PARAMS=$*
        ENTRY="$DATE ${PARAMS#* }"
        if [ "$1" == "put" ]; then
            echo $ENTRY >> $COMMENTFILE
        fi
        if [ "$CWD" != "$HOME" ] || [ "$1" == "putall" ]; then
                echo $ENTRY >> $HOME/$COMMENTFILE
        fi
        exit 0
fi

echo
echo "comment utility Aidan Hannigan July 2004"
echo "Usage: comment put string"
echo "               get | getall [-t] searchstring"
echo
exit 1

Remember to add the aliases to your ~/.bash_profile.