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I use Byobu with zsh when working on my research. I have many windows open, and often each of them is running a different experiment. When I run an experiment, the experiment executable creates a new folder for the experiment results, which looks like $MELFI0/.polina/2024-09-08-10-09-32-056727, and it outputs it to stdout.

When I browse through the different windows in Byobu, I want to be able to immediately copy that results folder path $MELFI0/.polina/2024-09-08-10-09-32-056727 that was written to stdout in that window. The catch is that the experiment executable is writing a lot of data to stdout, so if I want to find the results folder path, I have to scroll up a lot, and then manually mark it with the caret to copy it. That's quite laborious.

Is there a quicker way to do this? I want to have a setup where I can easily press some kind of key binding (like Ctrl-A R) and the results folder path of the experiment running in the current window is automatically found and copied to Byobu's clipboard.

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  • If the terminal has a Status line capability: ref: $ man terminfo as the man -page is visible, type: / +Status Lines and /status - that might be one way; display the filename within a "status", i.e. on a not-scrolling line. Commented Sep 8, 2024 at 8:30
  • One might also investigate "scroll region" possibilities. All of this might be available as ANSI-sequences or by terminfo / termcap $ tput <command> use. Commented Sep 8, 2024 at 8:36
  • Related; ncurses Commented Sep 8, 2024 at 8:50
  • Tip: github.com/pdanford/TerminalScrollRegionsDisplay Commented Sep 8, 2024 at 8:52
  • Your terminal may have the possibility to search for a string, so if you prefix the path with some marker, the terminal can search it for your. Other possibility: Have your script copy the path to your clipboard. Yet another possibility: Have your script the path written to , for instance (using zsh syntax here:), /tmp/melfi$TTY:t). You can then retrieve the path easily from within every window. Commented Sep 10, 2024 at 8:36

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Hello,

my solution consists of the following parts:

  • saving the results folder path to a variable, local to the window that the binary runs in
  • creating key bind to copy said variable's contents to the clipboard.

  1. Note: to quickly test the idea with variables you can do:

    export results_path="$(env | grep -o $HOME | head -n 1)"
echo $results_path

    Do I have to clarify what the output should look like? :]


  2. To save some part of STDOUT to a variable after running your_script binary the easiest solution (IMO!) is to add to your ~/.zshrc (or /etc/zsh/zshrc for global sourcing) the following (trivial ;]) function:

    capture_results_path() {
    results_path="$(your_script | grep -o $MELFI0/.polina/.* | head -n 1)"
    # OR - for capturing STDERR (choose ONE!): 
    results_path="$(your_script 2>&1 | grep -o $MELFI0/.polina/.* | head -n 1)"
}

    • if it's possible that the output will sometimes produce more paths starting at $MELFI0/.polina/ and leading to other locations than your results folder you'd have to add some regex instead of .*, for example:

      results_path="$(your_script | grep -o "$MELFI0/.polina/[0-9]\{4\}-[0-9]\{2\}-[0-9]\{2\}-[0-9]\{2\}-[0-9]\{2\}-[0-9]\{2\}-[0-9]\{1,10\}" | head -n 1)"

    • also note, that to utilize the new functionality you'll have to run your experiment by invoking capture_results_path (which will execute whatever you put instead of your_script) - so I'd suggest to use something short, like qaz:

      qaz() {
    results_path="$(your_script | grep -o "$MELFI0/.polina/[0-9]\{4\}-[0-9]\{2\}-[0-9]\{2\}-[0-9]\{2\}-[0-9]\{2\}-[0-9]\{2\}-[0-9]\{1,10\}" | head -n 1)"
}

  3. To create the shortcut that'll copy the focused-on windows' variable to the clipboard you'll need to invoke xclip (to install: apt-get install xclip / yum install xclip / dnf install xclip - or whatever else your distro uses). Then its another one-liner, that you have to add to your ~/.zshrc or /etc/zsh/zshrc:

    bindkey -s '^q' 'echo $results_path | xclip -selection clipboard\n'

    The above command binds copying the variable from the currently focused-on window to the shortcut CTRL+q. It should work for both foreground and background executables.


  1. Bonus1: to quickly debug simple regex - execute (for the different user change /root/ to /home/username/:

    export HOME1=/root/2024-09-08-10-09-32-056727 # so we have $HOME1 in "env"
export results_path="$(env | grep -o "$HOME/[0-9]\{4\}-[0-9]\{2\}-[0-9]\{2\}-[0-9]\{2\}-[0-9]\{2\}-[0-9]\{2\}-[0-9]\{1,10\}")"
echo $results_path

    The output of echo should be: /root/2024-09-08-10-09-32-056727 - or whatever else you exported as $HOME1. For the more advanced regex-es I recommend regex101.com


  1. Bonus2: To check if Byobu uses the same key combination (like CTRL+q), you can list Byobu’s key bindings using the following command: 
    byobu-ctrl-a-keys

Enjoy! And feel free to ask in case of unclearness ;]

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  • Thank you. I'd rather not launch my executable from a function. I want my executable to write this data to a window-specific place. Is that possible? Commented Sep 17, 2024 at 14:46
  • @RamRachum well, the function is trivial and shouldn't interfere in any way, but if you insist I think you can achieve it. Note, that the goal is to catch the instance-specific, newly generated path to a variable. Depending on your executable: if it's some kind of script you could simply add the appropriate command at the bottom of it, if it's a binary (which I suspect it is) - it may be problematic. The purpose of closing the command in a function is TO PREVENT IT FROM RUNNING every time you spawn new terminal - I just tested few options and all of them regrettably run the executable. Commented Sep 18, 2024 at 13:15
  • @RamRachum you could try running your executable directly using the command results_path="$(your_script | grep -o "$MELFI0/.polina/[0-9]\{4\}-[0-9]\{2\}-[0-9]\{2\}-[0-9]\{2\}-[0-9]\{2\}-[0-9]\{2\}-[0-9]\{1,10\}" | head -n 1)". Commented Sep 18, 2024 at 13:31

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