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fsel — a utility for managing file selections in a shell

A CLI utility to manage file selections for batch operations in Linux environments. Store, retrieve, and manipulate file lists between different command runs. It keeps the list persistently until you remove it explicitly.

Why?

Unix command-line utilities provide basic file operations such as copy, move, rename, and delete, but lack a "select" operation. This utility fills that gap by adding a "select" feature to the standard set of operations that available in CLI. It just makes CLI file management great again!

Imagine you need to select hundreds/thousand of files scattered across various directories and add them as arguments to a simple command like cp. Navigating through directories with all the masks (like "?*") and even modern autocomplete features makes this task cumbersome for editing, unless you're using a dedicated file manager (like Midnight Commander, Ranger and so on).

With fsel and powerful search utilities with filtering, such as fzf, you can easily compile the necessary list of files, iterating as needed and moving through the file tree. Finally, you can use this list in a shell script or a specific command (for example, in a loop: for f in $(fsel o); do cp -a "$f"; done).

Features

  • Preserve selection between command calls using temporary files
  • Accept arguments via stdin pipeline or as file arguments, including globbing pattern expansion
  • Implement lockfile mechanism to prevent concurrency collisions
  • Suited for really large selections (keep data on disk + uses index-based deduplication).

Installation

Requirements

  • GNU/Linux system
  • OpenSSL development libraries
  • C compiler (gcc/clang)
git clone https://github.com/uwfmt/fsel.git
cd fsel
make
sudo make install  # Optional, installs to /usr/local/bin

Usage

Utility is in development yet. Names of options and commands may be changed in future versions.

Basic Commands

# Append files from different places into selection
fsel save ~/*.log
fsel save /var/lelog/**/*.log

# Use prepared selection in any shell operation
for f in `fsel out`; do mv $f /var/archive; done

# Clear storage
fsel clear

Advanced Examples

# Add paths from current directory, they will be converted to absolute paths
# You could use "s" as short alias for "save"
ls -1 *.bak | fsel s

# Select even more from interactive TUI utility like `fzf``
fzf -m | fsel s

# Add resultsf of `find``
find /home -name '*.conf' | fsel s

# Use sorted selection and clear after using it
for f in `fsel -oc o`; do cp $f /mnt/backup; done

Forcely overwrite old selections when it needel:

# Force replace locked list
fsel r -f important_file.*

# Unlock when operation failed
fsel unlock
> Release existing lock? [Y/N] y

Operational Modes

Command Alias Description
save s Save file paths to selection, existing paths are ignored
replace r Replace existing selection with a new one
out o Output stored into selection file paths
clear c Clear the selection
unlock u Remove stale lockfile
help Show usage information

Also check man page for using details.

Options

Flag Description
-q Suppress informational messages
-o Order output alphabetically
-c Clear storage after output
-f Force operation ignoring lockfile
-h Show usage information

Technical Details

  • Storage Location: /tmp/fsel_<UID>.tmp
  • Index Files: SHA-256 hashes in /tmp/fsel_<UID>.idx
  • Lockfiles: /tmp/fsel_<UID>.lock for operation safety
  • Security: 0600 permissions on all user files

License License: GPL

Under terms of GPL v3 - see LICENSE for full text.