Open a file that was just created through a shell command

[ReaderGuy42]

I'm having trouble figuring out which reply goes with which of my many questions in this discussion here #369 (reply in thread) so I wanted to ask this again.

First, thanks so much for creating this plugin, it's super helpful for me, and thanks also for taking the time to reply!

I have a shell command:
cd {{folder_path:absolute}}; bash "Scripts/date-iterate.sh" {{file_name}}

This runs the script date-iterate.sh on the target Obsidian note.

#!/bin/bash

fileName=$1

today=$(date +"%Y-%m-%d")


if [[ $fileName =~ ([0-9]+-[0-9]+-[0-9]+)(.*)([0-9]+)\.([^.]*) ]]; then
  # BASH_REMATCH match groups:
  # 1 - date
  # 2 - everything else
  # 3 - number
  # 4 - extension

  number=$(( ${BASH_REMATCH[3]} + 1 ))

  while :; do

        newFileName="$(date +%Y-%m-%d)${BASH_REMATCH[2]}${number}.${BASH_REMATCH[4]}"

        [[ -f $newFileName ]] || break

        let number++

  done

  echo "copy $fileName to $newFileName"

  cp "$fileName" "$newFileName"

elif [[ $fileName =~ (.*)\.([^.]*) ]]; then

    newNumber="1"

      addInfoName="$today ${BASH_REMATCH[1]} V.${newNumber}.${BASH_REMATCH[2]}"

          mv "$fileName" "$addInfoName" 

                let newNumber++

           cp "$addInfoName" "$today ${BASH_REMATCH[1]} V.${newNumber}.${BASH_REMATCH[2]}"
                 
fi

I don't remember exactly who helped me with this script, it might have been you or someone on another forum, either way it works as intended.

It takes files and renames them.
filename gets turned into 2024-02-16 filename V.1 and then also creates a copy 2024-02-16 filename V.2. If there's already a date at the start of the file it just creates a copy and changes the date to the current one, e.g. 2024-02-10 filename V.1 gets copied and the new file then is 2024-02-16 filename V.2. This is my own way of version control within Obsidian.

However, to add the cherry on top, I'd like it to automatically navigate to that new file.

I've tried following your solution here #369 (reply in thread) but when I set my stdout to Open Files and echo the file path, and I add echo {{file_path:absolute}} to my shell command, so then the whole command looks like this:
cd {{folder_path:absolute}}; bash "Scripts/date-iterate.sh" {{file_name}}; echo {{file_path:absolute}}

But then I get this error pop up:

It’s somehow taking the command to copy as a file name I guess, though I don't know where it's getting that from.

Any advice is appreciated. Thanks!!

[Taitava]

Hi! 🙂 Thank you for your question and nice feedback! 🌞

The problem is that date-iterate.sh is outputting the text copy 2024-02-10 example V.2.md to 2024-02-16 example V.6.md to stdout:

echo "copy $fileName to $newFileName"

To fix this, you could change the echo line to only include the new file name:

echo "$newFileName"

Then, if you still would like to see a notification balloon in Obsidian showing the text that was originally echoed, you can output that text to stderr:

echo "$newFileName"
echo "copy $fileName to $newFileName" 1>&2

So, this is what happens now:

• The Open files output handler reads the text outputted to stdout (standard output) by the echo line that does not contain 1>&2. Open files does not read stderr (standard error) so we can echo anything to stderr without breaking Open files.
• On the other echo line, 1>&2 directs the outputted text to stderr (instead of stdout), which the SC plugin displays in a notification balloon (by default, if you haven't changed the output channel for stderr).

Please let me know if this helped you, or if you still have any questions. 👍

---

Here are the above-mentioned changes edited in your date-iterate.sh script:

#!/bin/bash

fileName=$1

today=$(date +"%Y-%m-%d")


if [[ $fileName =~ ([0-9]+-[0-9]+-[0-9]+)(.*)([0-9]+)\.([^.]*) ]]; then
  # BASH_REMATCH match groups:
  # 1 - date
  # 2 - everything else
  # 3 - number
  # 4 - extension

  number=$(( ${BASH_REMATCH[3]} + 1 ))

  while :; do

        newFileName="$(date +%Y-%m-%d)${BASH_REMATCH[2]}${number}.${BASH_REMATCH[4]}"

        [[ -f $newFileName ]] || break

        let number++

  done

  # Open the new file in Obsidian:
  echo "$newFileName"

  # Show a notification baloon in Obsidian:
  echo "copy $fileName to $newFileName" 1>&2

  cp "$fileName" "$newFileName"

elif [[ $fileName =~ (.*)\.([^.]*) ]]; then

    newNumber="1"

      addInfoName="$today ${BASH_REMATCH[1]} V.${newNumber}.${BASH_REMATCH[2]}"

          mv "$fileName" "$addInfoName" 

                let newNumber++

           cp "$addInfoName" "$today ${BASH_REMATCH[1]} V.${newNumber}.${BASH_REMATCH[2]}"

           # Open the new file in Obsidian:
           echo "$today ${BASH_REMATCH[1]} V.${newNumber}.${BASH_REMATCH[2]}"
                 
fi

Edit: I also added the following to the elif block:

# Open the new file in Obsidian:
echo "$today ${BASH_REMATCH[1]} V.${newNumber}.${BASH_REMATCH[2]}"

[Taitava]

Also, one note about this:

when I set my stdout to Open Files and echo the file path, and I add echo {{file_path:absolute}} to my shell command, so then the whole command looks like this: cd {{folder_path:absolute}}; bash "Scripts/date-iterate.sh" {{file_name}}; echo {{file_path:absolute}}

Doing echo {{file_path:absolute}} would not work here, because {{file_path:absolute}} would give the original (old) file name, not the new name. This is because all variables (like {{file_path:absolute}}) are resolved before the shell command is executed, i.e. before the copying.

echo {{file_path:absolute}} would reopen the original file.

[ReaderGuy42]

Thank you so much! All I had to do was change the change the echo command in my shell script to echo "$newFileName". I completely forgot to look through my script to find where that copy error was coming from. Now it works!! Thanks :)

[ReaderGuy42]

Hi again, sorry to be a bother, but it's somehow working sometimes but not always, which is confusing me. I'm now sometimes getting this error:

The error is strange, since the file is created correctly, it just doesn't see it?

[Taitava]

Hi, does it help if you:

• Add sleep 1 after the cp command (either in your script file or in the shell command after calling the script file). It will delay the shell command's completion by one second. Therefore it will delay the attempt to open the file.
• When doing this, please make sure the shell command's output handling mode is Wait until finished, not Realtime.

This can help if the file creation does not get complete before the shell command's execution finishes, i.e. if the file doesn't have enough time to be born before the SC plugin tries to read it. I'm not sure if this is the case for you, but it's one thing than can be tried. If it doesn't help, we can continue searching for a solution.

P.S. I know sleep 1 can be a bit annoying as it slows down the opening. You can try e.g. sleep 0.5 to make it a bit quicker.

[ReaderGuy42]

Yup, with sleep 0.5 it's perfect, thank you!!
I got some help optimizing the script over here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/78031222/15999132