Perform commands on selected items in Midnight Commander

Question

How can I perform a command on the selected items ?

for example calling vim, or gimp for the 5 text or image files selected.

I tried to make use of the inlined command line at the bottom, but it doesn't take my selection into account

score 15 · Answer 1 · edited Dec 06 '18 at 09:15

15

For one-liners, use %t at the command line, which gets substituted for a list of your selected items.

for F in %t; do echo "${F} is selected"; done

cp %t /var/somewhereelse/

edited Dec 06 '18 at 09:15

Melebius

answered Nov 30 '14 at 22:08

A.Hoznecer

Use `%f` macros as a substitute of current selected file name. Example: `vim %f`. – alexcloud2 Jul 23 '22 at 11:39

score 10 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 02 '12 at 22:34

10

Press F2 for user menu and then choose Do something on tagged files or press @. In popup window you can provide your command.

It is important to notice that for each file command will be executed separately. It will be something like:

for file in files:
   COMMAND file

not

COMMAND file1 file2

answered Dec 02 '12 at 22:34

pbm

this also works when the cursor is on a file but it is not *selected* – törzsmókus Mar 27 '15 at 16:34
the selected item is automatically appended to the command. – weberjn Aug 29 '18 at 14:37

2 Answers2