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STAR

STAR stands for Simple Text Archiving and Retrieving. There are two versions: an old one written in Ruby, and a new one written in Go. Their readmes are below.

In Go

star is a simple tool for saving and retrieving bits of text. You could use it to save bookmarks, hard-to-remember commands, complex emoticons, stuff like that.

Usage

I use star for all sorts of things.

$ star music listen
1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aloryfd5ipw
   analord, aphex twin, listen, music, music, afx
2) http://modernarecords.com/releases
   label, listen, music, contemporary classical
3) https://soundcloud.com/terryurban/sets/fka-biggie
   listen, music, terry urban, fka biggie
4) http://prefuse73.bandcamp.com/album/travels-in-constants-vol-25
   music, prefuse 73, temporary residence, travels in constants, listen

$ star book readme
1) http://www.squeakland.org/resources/books/readingList.jsp
   alan kay, books, readme, syllabus
2) http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/
   Practical Common Lisp, readme, lisp
3) https://tachyonpublications.com/product/central-station/
   books, readme, scifi
4) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_as_Will_and_Representation
   books, philosophy, readme, schopenhauer
5) http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18877915-the-lonely-astronaut-on-christmas-eve
   blink-182, readme, space

$ star emoticon
1) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
   emoticon, shrug
2) (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
   emoticon, fliptable
3) ⊙︿⊙
   bugeye, emoticon
4) (╯︵╰,)
   emoticon, sadcry
5) (*￣з￣)
   emoticon, kissing

Never let your friends down again!

$ star unix tar
1) tar -czvf DIR
   unix, tar, zip
2) tar -tzvf DIR.tar.gz
   unix, tar, list
3) tar -xzvf DIR.tar.gz
   unix, tar, unzip

That’s the “Retrieving” part of star. Depending on your config (or command line flags) you can then pipe the string on the numbered line to pbcopy, open, or any other external tool you like.

The “Archiving” part is done like this:

$ star -n value tag tag tag

So this:

$ star -n "tar -czvf DIR" unix tar zip

will create a new record in the store file. star stores records in a plain text file, by default at ~/.config/star/store but that’s configurable via the config file at ~/.config/star/config.yaml.

You can edit records via a temp file in your $EDITOR:

$ star -e unix tar
1) tar -czvf DIR
   unix, tar, zip
2) tar -tzvf DIR.tar.gz
   unix, tar, list
3) tar -xzvf DIR.tar.gz
   unix, tar, unzip
Edit these records: 1 3

Deleting records is also easy:

$ star -d todo
1) shave
   todo, today
2) shower
   todo, today
3) wash dishes
   todo, today
Delete these records: all

So essentially star saves, interfaces with, and acts on text snippets that it stores in a plain text file.

Installation

This version of star is written in Go. In bin/ there are compiled executables for every combination of [linux darwin windows] and [amd64 386] in the format star_[os]-[arch]. So to install you could just download the executable you need, put it somewhere useful, and create a symlink somewhere in your $PATH:

$ cd wherever/you/keep/programs
$ curl -O https://github.com/rmavis/go-STAR/raw/master/bin/star_[os]-[arch]
$ ln -s [executable] /usr/local/bin/star

Or you can clone the repo and build it yourself. If you have a working Go setup, it’s very easy:

$ cd $GOPATH/src/where/ever
$ git clone https://github.com/rmavis/go-STAR.git
$ go get gopkg.in/yaml.v2  # This is star's only dependency.
$ go install

There’s also a version written in Ruby, if you’re into that. They’re similar but I recommend this one—it’s faster and has better browsing options.

In Ruby

star is a simple tool for saving and retrieving bits of text. You could use it to save bookmarks, hard-to-remember commands, complex emoticons, stuff like that. It’s similar to the excellent boom by Zach Holman but suits me better.

I wanted:

to store a large variety of things
to classify those things with tags
to store those things and their tags in a plain text file

I did not want:

to need to remember specific keys associated with specific values in order to get to the things that I had saved
to need to install a collection of Ruby gems that I might never use otherwise
to need to deal with the associated problems with gem versions, etc.

So I wrote star. I use it every day.

So say you want to find some music. You type:

$ star music

Which returns:

1) http://adambryanbaumwiltzie.bandcamp.com/
   Tags: Adam Wiltzie, listen, music
2) http://screws.nilsfrahm.com/
   Tags: Nils Frahm, Screws, music
3) https://soundcloud.com/deadbeat
   Tags: Deadbeat, dub techno, music
4) https://soundcloud.com/modernlove/sets/andy-stott-luxury-problems-1
   Tags: Andy Stott, Luxury Problems, music
5) https://soundcloud.com/user18081971
   Tags: aphex twin, listen, music
0) None.
?:

Or say you’re working with a MySQL database:

$ star mysql
1) alter table `TABLE` add [primary] key (`COLUMN`);
   Tags: add key, mysql
2) alter table `TABLE` add `COLUMN-NAME` TYPE(LENGTH) default 'DEFAULT-VALUE' not null after `AFTER-THIS-COLUMN`;
   Tags: add column, mysql
3) alter table `TABLE` change `OLD-NAME` `NEW-NAME` TYPE(LENGTH);
   Tags: change column, mysql
4) alter table `TABLE` drop column `COLUMN`;
   Tags: drop column, mysql
5) create table `TABLE` (`COLUMN` TYPE(LENGTH) not null auto_increment [, MORE COLUMNS...], primary key (`id`));
   Tags: create a table, mysql
0) None.
?:

You type the number of the line you want and the script pipes the text on that line to pbcopy, thereby copying it to your clipboard.

You can add new entries with something like:

$ star -n clipboard utility "OS X" Flycut https://github.com/TermiT/Flycut/

You can delete entries by using the -d option, and you can edit, add, or delete entries in your $EDITOR with -e.

Your data is stored in plain text in a file, by default at ~/.config/star/store but you can change that by specifying a different filename in the config file at ~/.config/star/config.yaml.

So if you’re interested, it’s on github. Clone the repo and run the demo:

$ ruby star.rb --demo

And if you like it and decide to keep it, installation is as easy as putting it somewhere safe, chmoding the star.rb file executable, and creating a link to it in some directory in your PATH, like:

$ sudo ln -s where/ever/it/is/star.rb /usr/local/bin/star

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