Question

4

How to append date and text to a file as an alias?

rated 0 times [ 4] [ 0] / answers: 1 / hits: 1051 / 3 Years ago, thu, june 17, 2021, 12:05:15

I want to create an alias to append a dated note to a file. (The use case I want to reproduce : Sebastian Daschner - How to do effective note taking as developer.

So far I was able to append the date, but I cannot figure out a way to append both the date and the note from user input.

Usage

append-to-file 'my text'

Expected result in file.txt

2021-08-30 : some previous text

2021-09-01 : my text

The alias I have written so far

alias append-to-file='tee -a file.txt <<< $(echo $(date -I) :)'

Answers

Only authorized users can answer the question. Please sign in first, or register a free account.

fulild

Add To Favorites

Follow

Total Points: 239

Total Questions: 103

Total Answers: 112

Location: Papua New Guinea

Member since Thu, Jul 9, 2020

4 Years ago

fulild questions

1 Retrieve data from disk after dd

Sat, Dec 11, 21, 20:10, 2 Years ago

1 Firefox not offered as default mail application

Sat, Nov 19, 22, 16:28, 1 Year ago

1 How to use the command "rename" on subdirectories as well

Sat, Feb 25, 23, 22:59, 1 Year ago

1 Elgato Wave 3 only as input or output but not both

Wed, Oct 12, 22, 04:04, 2 Years ago

1 Ubuntu 18.04 LTS - Tower Cannot Connect to New TV

Sun, Jul 31, 22, 08:07, 2 Years ago

View All

answered 3 Years ago imonove · Accepted Answer

You can do this with a little script. One way could be:

#!/bin/bash

echo "$(date -I) : $@" >> file.txt

tail -n 1 file.txt

The $@ variable stands for anything you entered at the command line. The tail command will echo the last line of the file to the screen.

Save this script in your ~/bin or in your .local/bin directory as append-to-file. Create the directory if it does not exist. Next time you log in, either of these directories will be included in your PATH. You then can enter the command anytime. What you enter will be saved in a file file.txt in the current working directory.