Korbs Daemonize Tool

A little C tool to start GUI applications and open files.

Why?

Starting GUI applications on Linux from your shell is annoying. First, you add the ampersand to the line to daemonize it. Afterwards the program will continue to clutter your screen with random log output. How nice. So you add 2>&1 >/dev/null. On zsh, you also want to type disown afterwards, else it will deny to close because a job is still running. And so on.

Ugh. How hard can it be? And that's why I wrote this tool. It's designed to not have any dependencies, and only requires a C89 compatible C compiler.

As little extra, if it detects that you want to open a path, file, or URL, it'll act as wrapper to xdg-open.

Installation

$ make
# make install # Or copy 'd' to some directory in your $PATH manually

That's it. If you're using zsh, copy _d into a directory in your $fpath for auto-completion:

# cp _d /usr/local/share/zsh/site-functions
$ exec zsh   # Reload zsh afterwards

Usage

d <Application-in-PATH> <Arguments to that application ...>
d <File, path or URL>

Examples

Start firefox (Or any other application): $ d firefox
Start firefox with a URL: $ d firefox https://github.com/
Open a path with the default application: $ d fileOrPath
Open a URL with the default application: $ d http://example.com/ or $ d mailto:foo@bar.com
Open the current working directory in a graphical browser: $ d .
Run a process but keep its output: $ d ls > listing
Run a process using stdin: $ ls | d kate --stdin

Behaviour

When d is started ..

If no arguments are given, print usage and exit
If more than one argument are given, start the application with those arguments
If one argument is given, search for it in $PATH, and if found, start that. Else, start xdg-open on that path/file

d will close stdout and stderr iff stdout is a character device. This means d will be silent if you just call it, but it will keep stdout and stderr open when you redirect the output somehow: d foo | cat or d foo > bar.

d will close stdin iff stdin is a character device. This means that d will close stdin if you just call it, but will keep it open if you redirect data into it: cat foo | d bar or d bar < foo

Note: d fork()s before starting an application, thus, it never blocks.

License (3-clause BSD)

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
Neither the name of the copyright holder nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

Contributing

Just follow the code style already in the file. Functions would be nice, apart from that, the tool shall remain in a single source file. If your feature is too complex for that, it's too complex for d :)

Papierkorb/daemonize-tool