Add gress()

2 files changed, 24 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/README.markdown b/README.markdown
index d2ce0efa..cd3305fd 100644
--- a/README.markdown
+++ b/README.markdown
@@ -403,6 +403,8 @@ Installed by the `install-bin` target:
     and does up to three silent retries using `try(1)`.
 *   `grc(1)` quietly tests whether the given directory appears to be a Git
     repository with pending changes.
+*   `gress(1)` runs the output of `grep(1)` through your pager, using color if
+    it can
 *   `gscr(1)` scrubs Git repositories.
 *   `han(1)` provides a `keywordprg` for Vim's Bash script filetype that will
     look for `help` topics. You could use it from the shell too.
diff --git a/sh/shrc.d/gress.sh b/sh/shrc.d/gress.sh
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..483198b3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/sh/shrc.d/gress.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,22 @@
+# Pipe grep(1) output through PAGER; mostly to preserve grep colouring
+# interactively through less(1), but it'll work fine with plain grep(1) and
+# more(1)
+gress() {
+
+    # Add --color=always if the terminal has at least 8 colors; we have to add
+    # "always" to coax grep(1) into emitting colors even though it can tell its
+    # stdout isn't a terminal but a pager
+    [ -e "$HOME"/.cache/grep/color ] &&
+    [ "$({ tput colors || tput Co ; } 2>/dev/null)" -ge 8 ] &&
+        set -- --color=always "$@"
+
+    # Run grep; it might be our function wrapper; that's OK
+    grep "$@" |
+
+    # Run the appropriate pager; if it's less(1), we can tack on -R (though my
+    # ~/.lesskey does this anyway)
+    case $PAGER in
+        less) "$PAGER" -R ;;
+        *) "$PAGER" ;;
+    esac
+}