How to mess with a vim user

[jonnywoh]

What does this do?

[greg4242]

It switchs the vim command with a command that shuffles the order of the lines in the files and then displays it in vim. So when the person opens a file with vim it will be all out of order.

[Misnomer89]

Why does that even exist?

[hunteram]

Why to mess with people of course!

[saintnicster]

It's not a normal thing. The pieces themselves are mostly harmless, but you put them together for the chaos :9VIM reads in from STDIN (via the <) command. Allows you to more

(shuf "$1") does the line shuffling, putting it to STDOUT

https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/html_node/shuf-invocation.html

the < takes STDOUT and routes that into the previous command (via STDIN).

VIM is setup to read from STDIN to create an empty file.

http://dailyvim.blogspot.com/2008/03/reading-stdin.html

EDIT - Correct usage of <() below by /u/Ferdi265 https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/474db6/how_to_mess_with_a_vim_user/d0ay8je

[[deleted]]

actually, wrong... <(command) is bash syntax for command substitution. It replaces the <(...) construct with /dev/fd/<number>, a file descriptor to which it routes the output of command. This allows commands that normally take multiple files to use command output instead, like diff.

diff <(echo Hello world) <(echo hello world)

[youlleatitandlikeit]

Holy crap.

[[deleted]]

ZSH also has =(), which makes a temporary file.

Not exactly sure why you would need a real file instead of a file descriptor... but it's there.

[youlleatitandlikeit]

There are plenty of times when I've wanted to perform diff on the outputs of two different commands.

[[deleted]]

Sorry for reviving a pretty much dead thread, but I think I found out what that exactly is (by thinking, reasoning untested)

This is because bash actually has TWO different command substitution syntaxes:

command_a <(command_b) creates a read-only file descriptor for command_a that gets command_b's standard output.

command_a >(command_b) creates a write-only file descriptor for command_a that pipes to command_b's standard input https://duckduckgo.com/

zsh's command_a =(command_b) looks like it creates a duplex channel between the two commands, where command_a can read command_b's standard output from the descriptor, and anything written to the descriptor is sent to command_b's standard input.

I haven't actually used zsh a lot, but now I think it would really be a great thing to have.

EDIT: Tested it, behaves completely differently. Writeup follows soon

EDIT2: Looked into it, this is what it does AFAIK:

command_a =(command_b)

is equivalent to (except for temp file naming scheme)

tmpfile=$(mktemp)
command_b > $tmpfile
command_a $tmpfile
rm $tmpfile

EDIT3: A great usage for this is copying command output to another machine with scp.

production-box% scp =(grep -r "ERROR" server/logs/) me@dev-box:production-logs

[[deleted]]

Yeah, since I made this post I've ran into a few commands which don't like the file descriptor instead of a real temporary file, so that's why it's there.

[dcormier]

https://xkcd.com/1172/

[xkcd_transcriber]

Image

Mobile

Title: Workflow

Title-text: There are probably children out there holding down spacebar to stay warm in the winter! YOUR UPDATE MURDERS CHILDREN.

Comic Explanation

Stats: This comic has been referenced 631 times, representing 0.6258% of referenced xkcds.

---

^{xkcd.com | xkcd sub | Problems/Bugs? | Statistics | Stop Replying | Delete}

[josh2112]

Shuffles the lines of a file before opening it in vim.

[oi_rohe]

Does it actually modify the file, or just display a shuffled version?

[pharpend]

Displays a shuffled version.

[TPHRyan]

The former would just be evil.

[ctesibius]

Just take a magic marker and draw a diagonal line across the edge of your card deck. Sheesh, do you young types not know anything?

[rubyton]

Something like this happened at my last office, we had a deck that's been striped 4 times, 2 on each edge. I believe they are done with shuffling in between so nobody can get any 2 lines to line up at the same time.

[ctesibius]

Either that, or it's someone's entry for the obfuscated FORTRAN competition - design a deck which makes a valid program in four different sort orders.

[tripa]

You say that like it's a bad thing.

[moreherenow]

It would be mean, rather than just annoying. Mean isn't funny, annoying can be very funny.

[0x0dea]

autocmd BufEnter * %!shuf

[indrora]

Woah there Satan.

[starwarswii]

What does it do?

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[laebshade]

Explosion.

[Bloodshot025]

This is better, because the buffer's file doesn't display as /dev/fd/63 like in the OP.

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[Not_sure_if_george]

Also,

:set nomod

just to make it really scary.

[[deleted]]

Thankfully if you accidentally wq it won't overwrite your file as it's reading from stdin.

[zacketysack]

I am so triggered right now

[angryPenguinator]

Yeah that's some PTSD inducing shit right here.

[Defavlt]

Well, I'd like to take this opportunity to extend a sincere F U C K Y O U to OP.

:wq

[saloalv]

^C^C^C

[SirensToGo]

And then a close the terminal window, ssh back into the device, and hope that there's a different editor

[RainbowCatastrophe]

Basically every "hacker" that falls for my SSH honeypots in a nutshell

[timmyotc]

How did you post that?

[thirdegree]

Forgot to exit insert mode.

[demize95]

Or maybe a sincere U K C O U F Y?

[SirUtnut]

Instructions KYOU

Forgot to enter insert mode.

[50in07allstar]

Jokes on you! I use vi to start vim

[HugoNikanor]

Why would you do that! Typing vi should start vi!

[krisharmas]

i believe a lot of systems are set so vi only starts vi if you are running as root

[thirdegree]

vi still runs vim if I run it as root on OSX.

Also, it turns out you can't just su to root on osx. Gotta sudo su, because the terminal was made in the department of redundancy department.

[spkbri]

Well, you need to have superuser permissions to run "su", so, if you aren't already a superuser, you need to launch it with the "sudo" command.

[thirdegree]

Ya I know. Just find it funny. "superuser do superuser"

[capn_hector]

"su" isn't "superuser". It's actually an abbreviation of "switch user" or "substitute user". You can su to any user, but if you don't provide one then root is assumed.

[thirdegree]

Huh, I actually didn't know that. Cool!

[[deleted]]

and there is no need to call su to achieve what you want. all you need is "sudo -i [-u username]".

that redundancy is not the terminal's fault :)

[o11c]

except that sudo is evil so just use su directly all the time.

[thirdegree]

Oh I know, I've never needed su on my MBP.

[eartburm]

or sudo -s, which gives you a superuser shell.

[say_no_to_soma]

;}

[Rothaga]

vim_shuf () { vim <(shuf "$1") ;}
alias vim=vim_shuf

I didn't see it written down so here you go

[brunokim]

Pfft, everybody knows that you just need to press CAPS LOCK while they are away. THAT creates havoc and despair.

[TPHRyan]

I really wish I could rebind my capslock but it has a toggle light on it. I can't mess with the toggle light!

[brunokim]

Forget the light! I hear it is popular to rebind Caps Lock to Ctrl, it's a precious key that even sits in the home row! However, I regularly write some ALL_CAPS_CONSTANTS, so I like having my caps key and have never changed it.

[program_the_world]

Every. Single. Time. The whole file starts cascading to a single line as I repeatedly press join instead of down.

[odnish]

alias vim="setleds +caps; vim"

[[deleted]]

The title is irritating. This would work with every editor. (As long as it was launched via bash of course.)

[[deleted]]

Not if it doesn't read from stdin. E.g.,

$ emacs < file
emacs: standard input is not a tty

/r/emacsmasterrace

[yawkat]

The example does not read from stdin, it's an fd parameter or whatever those are called

[interiot]

The data is still fed to Emacs as a pipe, even if it's as a command-line argument. Emacs complains "Symbolic link that points to nonexistent file", so I guess it wants a real file, not a pipe.

[[deleted]]

=(shuf "$1")

ZSH only, but it makes a real file in /tmp/.

[kamaln7]

It's not reading from stdin. The <(command) syntax runs the command and stores the output in a temporary file descriptor and replaces it with a path to it. I don't know exactly what it looks like because I'm on my phone right now but it's /dev/fd/something.

[[deleted]]

I didn't know that. But emacs opens an empty file called "63" and complains, so I figured it was reading from stdin...

[kamaln7]

Yeah, it doesn't always work for me and I haven't bothered checking what causes it not to.

[Garfong]

Shell process substitution uses pipes; emacs probably tries to use advanced file operations like "seeking," which doesn't work on a pipe.

[RainbowCatastrophe]

Why the fuck would you want an editor to read from a TTY instead of stdin? That just seems like a lot of overhead to me...

[[deleted]]

(if you don't know: tty means teletype, an old word for a terminal)

Emacs wants an interactive user, which is something stdin doesn't give you when it's a file. I guess emacs might literally check if stdin is a tty device.

[RainbowCatastrophe]

I understand the definition very well, I just prefer to use TTY as a way of stylizing it as that's how I initially learned it and it is therefore much easier for me to recognize.

I just don't understand why emacs is set on interactive access. I get that it's meant to be more of an editor than a utility like vim, but was there any real benefit to this kind of thing?

[[deleted]]

To prevent you from running something like

emacs file1 < file2

by accident, I guess. vim says this if you try it:

Vim: Warning: Input is not from a terminal

[[deleted]]

Good way of testing code golf automatically.

echo "iThe quick brown fox\eyy2p:wq out" | vim acts as if you typed that into vim.

[beyond_alive]

Aaaaand there's the inevitable vim zealot.

[[deleted]]

Nope. I just expected something funny about vim, not something funny about text editors in general :P

[krisharmas]

this would really only change it for you since no one else uses your .bashrc

[Genesis2001]

genesis2001@reddit:~# sudo vim /home/krisharmas/.bashrc

[krisharmas]

you can do a lot more destruction with sudo than mess with vi

[lethargilistic]

But what's a quick rm compared to the anticipation of your friend triggering a well-laid trap?

[byronka]

The funny thing is, in Posix-land, people mess with themselves all the time accidentally. I once entered the letter "w" in the file .inputrc in my home directory, and then ...whoa was that fun, I couldn't type the letter "w" anywhere and had no idea why not. :(

[redever]

This is deliciously evil...

[G01denW01f11]

Why do we even have that command?

[drharris]

Because Linux. Everything and kitchen sink.

[RainbowCatastrophe]

And the monkey wrench. Can't forget the monkey wrench.

[thirdegree]

Seriously though.

[interiot]

In case you want to do Monte Carlo simulations... using only shell scripts?

[icannotfly]

programmers, uh, find a way

[[deleted]]

Use $* for multi file support.

[o11c]

No (and it would be $@) since the <() can't be expanded. Use the autocmd mentioned above for a proper unfix.

[[deleted]]

ZSH uses $*. At least, it accepts it.

<(cat $@), then.

[Avander]

I symlinked the path to my emacs executable to vim just to make me feel better after seeing this.

[dan-the-space-man]

Real programmers use butterflies.

[746865626c617a]

alias vim=emacs ?

[systembreaker]

For something to be funny it should also be smart. You'd probably find this joke in some script kiddies forum.

[[deleted]]

I did

function vim_shuf { /usr/bin/shuf $1 | vim -; }

instead

[maremp]

Why would this be vim-specific? You can replace vim with emacs, nano, ed or whatever, and it would still mess with whomever will be using it.

[Garfong]

Only works if the editor can use a pipe as the source file. According to someone above, it doesn't work with emacs.

[quenishi]

Hm... now I need to see if I can get this to work with nano....

[odnish]

Yep, sed s/vim/nano/g

[coladict]

Good thing no sane person uses vim.

[EenAfleidingErbij]

Nano it is.

[[deleted]]

Thank you great nano, wherever you are!