Autoztool 0.3

[ewx]

I’ve released a new version of Autoztool. The main change in this version is Mac OS X support (with some limitations).

Autoztool contains a command called z, which executes the command found on its command line, in an environment in which compressed files are automatically and mostly transparently decompressed when they are opened for reading.

You use this command much like nohup or nice. For example:

z less truss-genealogy.text.gz

Especially if you have zless already this example probably doesn’t seem very compelling. The advantages appear if you don’t have a “z” variant of a command, or where the behavior of the “z” version differs in some unhelpful or ugly way from the standard version.

For example, on my system, running zless with multiple filenames on the command line produces much less user-friendly behavior than standard less, and using z less instead solves this.

Get it from http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/2001/05/autoztool.html. Yes, it could probably use a better name.

Comments

[pndc.livejournal.com]

Why not just use bash's <(...) feature instead of arsing around with LD_PRELOAD hacks?

[ewx.livejournal.com]

(i) not every file you want to read appears on the command line (ii) the process substitution feature screws up the filenames (iii) it gives you a non-seekable pipe, the z command gives you a regular file.