1

My end-game here is to have the following:

$ python3 -c "print(\"Hello, world!\")"
Hello, world!
$ >>> print("Hello, world!")
Hello, world!

Basically, every time my command line starts with >>>, I want the rest of the command line to be fed to python3 with the -c switch.

If it was possible to declare (and use) a >>> function, it would be implemented as follow:

>>>() {
    python3 -c "$@"
}

For the record, I'm using zsh.

My first try was to create an alias named >>>, but it's not valid on any of the two shells. Next I tried to create a >>> function, and even though it's valid on ZSH, there is seemingly no way to call it (be it with >>> or \>\>\>).

How can I achieve this?

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2 Answers 2

Reset to default
1

Since that needs to happen before zsh parses the line (as you need it to be python syntax, not zsh syntax), you'd need to do it in the accept-line widget:

accept-line() {
  emulate -L zsh
  set -o extendedglob
  case $BUFFER in
    ('>>>'*)
      zle -I
      fc -R =(print -r -- $BUFFER)
      python -c "${BUFFER##>>> #}"
      BUFFER=
      ;;
    (*) zle .$WIDGET
  esac
}
zle -N accept-line
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1
  • Wow, that's great. I didn't know about accept-line. This works like a charm. Thanks! Commented May 29, 2020 at 7:25
0

This works for zsh, remember to escape special characters/quote when defining the function:

'>>>'() {
    python3 -c "$@"
}

'bad|idea<for>a command name'() { :; }
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1
  • The issue is that now I need to call it with $ \>\>\> which is not desirable Commented May 28, 2020 at 12:41

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