Thanks, Bill. 

I am constantly amazed at the knowledge displayed on this list. 

Following is one of my recent questions, and the response Bill Jonas wrote: 

My question was: 
> > Is there an efficient syntax to string commands so I could do a 'diff'
> > on these two listings (without listing each to a file to compare files)
> > to see what the two additional files are?

Bill answered: 
> With bash and some others:
>
> diff <(ls -a ~) <(ls -A ~)
>
> The <() syntax is called "command substitution".  It basically gives a
> filehandle on the output of the command you have inside.  You can think
> of it as similar to a pipe, except it's for commands that don't accept
> data on their standard input.  For fun, you can try "file -s <(df -h)"
> (or any other command instead of df) and note the results.  (Results may
> differ on different distributions, but "fd" is short for "file 
> descriptor".) 

=================================== 
The following may be of interest to someone: 

Solutions like this one Bill provided are valuable to save for 
future reference.  This is how I save and recall solutions like this: 
Over the last 20+ years, I have saved hundreds of solutions that 
I have learned (and continue to learn) in a file on my system named 
"commands" ... with each solution summarized on a single line. 

A long time ago, a friend helped me to construct a little shell script 
utility that gives me quick access to recall solutions like this ... 
(as well as for dozens of additional uses for this utility). 

Originally, I had called this utility 'zip' but since someone else 
came along and created the compression utility using that name, 
I changed the name to 'jig' or just 'j' ... 

It can be invoked in various ways, just by typing: j filename 
or in a specific application by giving it its own unique name: 
In this case, this is how it works: 

On the command line, I just type the word "commands" 
and the following prompt appears: 

    commands >>>  

At this point, a variety of options are available, all of which 
are invoked by a single hot-key.  If I need a reminder of what 
function each key invokes, I can just press <ENTER> and a 
one-line list of a few of the basic options is displayed. 

One option is to "select" and for this, I just hit the "s" key. 
In response, I see: 

    Select what? 

The prompt waits for my input.  I can then type any word 
or string of words that seems appropriate (this invokes 'grep'). 
In this case, I might enter the word:  compare 
with the following result: 

diff <(ls -a ~) <(ls -A ~) <E> compare the difference between two file lists 

Here are just a few of the other one-liners in my commands list: 
The <E> indicates press <ENTER> and separates the command 
from the very brief summary description.  Some of these commands 
call other shell scripts that perform various functions. 

cdrecord -scanbus <E>           Displays CDR device information
cdrecord -v speed=2 dev=0,0 filename.iso <E>    To burn a live distro.
more /var/log/messages <E>      Displays system info details
grep ttyS /var/log/dmesg <E>    Test to see if serial port is working
gcc filename.c <E>              compile c program
jfind filename <E>               To slocate a file in /home/joe/mydata only
lynx www.website.com <E>        text only browser of named website
wget www.website.com <E>        copies website html file to current folder
xpdf filename.pdf <E>           pdf file viewer
jview file <E>                  open named file with .htm suffix w konqueror
pdf2htm file.pdf <E>            converts a .pdf suffix file to .html suffix
chkconfig --list <E>            Ck system config to see what services running
flush.khist <E>                 clears konqueror location toolbar history

... and the list goes on ... and on ... and on ... ;)) 

While I have been content using this by popping open a terminal 
emulator window to invoke this utility on the command line, I hope 
to eventually develop a way of invoking this from a desktop or 
start-line icon. 

Joe@Actionline.com 

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