I’ve been tinkering with my [dotfiles](https://github.com/remy/dotfiles) a lot recently, and wanted to show how I’m creating gists on the CLI these days.

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First, you’ll need to install the gist application using brew install gist, then you’re going to add a new function to your shell via your .zshrc (or .bashrc or whatever flavour you enjoy).

All newly created gists on the CLI will make use of the following flags:

  • create all gists as secret (-p)

  • copy the gist url to the clipboard (-c)

  • open the browser to the gist (-o)

The function that we create will extend the brew installed gist applications by supporting three modes for the CLI tool:

  1. $ gist filename.json — create a gist from the filename.json with the name filename.json

  2. $ cat filename.json | gist – create a new gist from STDIN

  3. $ gist – paste whatever’s on the clipboard and create a new gist called paste.txt

This last one is fun and pretty much the reason I made this function. I tend to have something on my clipboard that I want to quickly share. I can now just type gist into my terminal and I’ll make a gist, show me the page (so I get visual confirmation it worked) and it’s already copied to my clipboard.

gist function[](#gist-function)

Copy and paste this bash function into your profile and you’ll have the extended functionality that I described above.

$ function gist() {
  # if there's nothing piped on STDIN
  if [ -t 0 ]; then
    # and there's no arguments...
    if ((! $# )); then
      # take what's on the clipboard and paste it in a new gist
      command gist -Pcop -f paste.txt
    else
      # create a gist based on the arguments give
      command gist -cop $@
    fi
  else
    # otherwise, create a gist, with arguments, but use the
    # content from STDIN
    command gist -cop $@ < /dev/stdin
  fi
}

Hope that’s useful. In fact, I’ve since evolved this script to pipe the output directly to the [gitio command I have](https://github.com/remy/dotfiles/blob/93f4390655db3930c5cde5b1f998dc8d0596a17a/.functions#L36-L50) so I get short URL too!

Published 1-Dec 2016 under #web. [Edit this post](https://github.com/remy/remysharp.com/blob/main/public/blog/smarter-cli-gists.md)

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rem

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7 years ago

Ugh! You’re completely right. I’ll remove it. Thanks.

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