exec-helper¶

Synopsis¶

exec-helper <commands> [options]

eh <commands> [options]

Description¶

The exec-helper utility is a meta-wrapper for executables, optimizing one of the slowest links in most workflows: you. It enables the user to optimize the existing workflow in multiple minor and major ways:

It minimizes the amount of typing while eliminating redundancies
It chains multiple commands, inserting patterns at specified places
It avoids having to memorize or search for the right invocations for more complicated commands
It allows to write your system- and project-specific plugins for more advanced optimizations

These optimizations enable efficient users to do what they like to do the most: hang around the coffee machine with peace of mind.

Options¶

Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too. Arguments to options can be specified by appending the option with ‘=ARG’ or ‘ ARG’. This manual will further use the ‘=ARG’ notation. Multiple arguments can be specified, if appropriate and without the need to repeat the option, by using spaces in between the arguments.

-h, --help¶: Display a usage message on standard output and exit successfully.

-v, --verbose¶: Enable the verbose flag for the command if available.

-z, --command=COMMAND¶: Execute one or more configured COMMANDs. This is an alias for the <commands> mandatory option above.

-s, --settings-file[=FILE]¶

Use FILE as the settings file for the exec-helper configuration. Default: .exec-helper. Exec-helper will use the first file it finds with the given FILE name. It will search in order in the following locations:

The current working directory
The parent directories of the working directory. The parent directories are searched in reversed order, meaning that the direct parent of the current working directory is searched first, next the direct parent of the direct parent of the current working directory and so-forth until the root directory is reached.
The HOME directory of the caller.

-j, --jobs[=JOBS]¶: Use the specified number of JOBS for each task (if supported). Use auto to let exec-helper determine an appropriate number. Use a value of 1 for running jobs single-threaded. Default: auto.

-n, --dry-run¶: Print the commands that would be executed, but do not execute them.

-k, --keep-going¶: Execute all scheduled commands, even if one or more of them fail.

Configured options¶

Additional command-line options for exec-helper can be configured in the settings file. Refer to the exec-helper-config(5) documentation for more information.

Exit status¶

When exec-helper is called improperly or its plugins are invoked improperly, exec-helper will exit with a status of one. In other cases, it exits with the same status as the last failed command or zero if all commands are executed successfully.

Auto-completion¶

Auto-completions are available for the Bash and Zsh shell. Package maintainers receive the tools to automatically enable these completions. If your installation package does not do this, you can enable them yourself by adding source <install-directory>/share/exec-helper/completions/init-completion.sh to your profile or bashrc.