Ability to create multiple files and / or directories in 1 command

[nickjj]

I find myself creating directories and files using Fern because it's handy, but I noticed that you can't create more than 1 file or directory at a time in a way that produces an expected result.

For example if you create a new path and enter in a/ b/ you end up with a/b (B is nested in A) instead of a/ b/ (they are their own independent directories). The expected outcome would be what you'd get if you used mkdir or touch directly.

To get around this I find myself running :!mkdir a/ b/ in Vim directly which works but this also means a lot more typing (especially if it's a nested directory in a project) and also reloading Fern to pick up the changes.

[lambdalisue]

For example if you create a new path and enter in a/ b/ you end up with a/b (B is nested in A) instead of a/ b/ (they are their own independent directories). The expected outcome would be what you'd get if you used mkdir or touch directly.

No. It's a bit incorrect. Fern creates a/ b/ rather than a/b/ for a/ b/ thus users get the result as-is. I didn't designed the feature to mimic the behavior of mkdir or touch.

I understand your want but I cannot image a good interface which consistent with the current one (I'm not going to apply breaking changes for this.) Does anyone have ideas?

[nickjj]

No. It's a bit incorrect. Fern creates a/ b/ rather than a/b/ for a/ b/ thus users get the result as-is.

Oh my machine (Ubuntu 20.04 LTS) with the latest version of Fern as of today if I run fern-action-new-path and type a/ b/ it will create this directory structure:

$ ls -laR

.:
total 80
drwxr-xr-x   3 nick nick  4096 Feb 23 13:44 .
drwxrwxrwt 210 root root 69632 Feb 23 13:45 ..
drwxr-xr-x   3 nick nick  4096 Feb 23 13:44 a

./a:
total 12
drwxr-xr-x 2 nick nick 4096 Feb 23 13:44 ' b'
drwxr-xr-x 3 nick nick 4096 Feb 23 13:44  .
drwxr-xr-x 3 nick nick 4096 Feb 23 13:44  ..

'./a/ b':
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 2 nick nick 4096 Feb 23 13:44 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 nick nick 4096 Feb 23 13:44 ..

And inside of Fern it creates a nested b/ inside of a/.

[lambdalisue]

I... don't really get what you mean. It seems the result you pasted is what exactly I expect.

I expect the following when you run fern-action-new-path with a/_b/ (assume _ is a whitespace)

• a directory
• _b directory in the above a directory (assume _ is a whitespace)

Is my expectation correct in your machine?

[nickjj]

Yep that is what happens. I misread your initial reply because I missed the empty whitespace reference (good idea with using _).

[lambdalisue]

Ok, then fern worked as it designed.

Let's get back to the original. Do you (or anyone) have interface idea for creating multiple files/directories. Or are you satisfied with the current design while it create a file/directory as it designed?

[nickjj]

It's a tricky one. It would be kind of neat if it worked like mkdir or touch where you can pass in a space separated list of paths, and if you happen to want a space in your path then you would quote it. This way you have the same interface to create 1 or many paths.

It could get complicated tho because then there's maybe doing things like touch a/b/{hello,world}, but I think this could be pretty easily avoided in Fern by invoking the create path action on the b directory in this case so the need for {} goes away.

[lambdalisue]

I'm sorry but I'm not going to apply breaking changes for this while most of people satisfied with the current interface.

[cairijun]

I find this feature could be handy for cpp devs. We regularly need to touch some_class.{h,cpp} but currently two fern-action-new-files are required. I made a quick and dirty workaround for this.

function! s:fern_exec(cmd) abort
    let node = fern#helper#new().sync.get_cursor_node()
    if l:node['status'] == g:fern#STATUS_NONE
        let node = l:node['__owner']
    endif
    let path = l:node['_path']
    let orig_path = getcwd()
    exec 'lcd ' . l:path
    execute '!' . a:cmd
    exec 'lcd ' . l:orig_path
endfunction
command! -complete=shellcmd -nargs=+ FernExec call s:fern_exec(<q-args>)
command! -complete=shellcmd -nargs=+ FernExecIn FernDo -stay :FernExec <args>

Usage: FernExecIn touch some_class.{h,cpp} should do what you expect.

[lambdalisue]

We regularly need to touch some_class.{h,cpp} but currently two fern-action-new-files are required.

Thanks, I didn't have that point 👍 Now I understand that the feature is convenient for some users. (it doesn't mean that I'm going to implement that feature thought.)

[lambdalisue]

Ah, well, I need to think about Windows... I'm sure that mkdir or touch doesn't work on Windows and I don't think it's good idea to parse the argument in fern to detect some_class.{h,cpp} or something like that while Vim script is horribly slow and it's not powerful enough to parse sh-like expressions.

[nickjj]

I'm not sure how all Windows users use Vim but I am on Windows here and use terminal Vim within WSL which has access to all Unix commands. Is Fern coded today in such a way that it works with GUI Vim running in Windows?

[lambdalisue]

Is Fern coded today in such a way that it works with GUI Vim running in Windows?

I know some users are using fern on gVim in Windows.

I believe that supporting Windows is quite important feature of fern while tons of Vim plugins doesn't work well on Windows. (I, personally, doesn't use Windows though.)

[cairijun]

Well, brace expansion in vim is not portable even in the Unix world. AFAIK it won't work on busybox. A portable solution might need a tedious vimscript implementation (which doesn't seem worth it), or some external dependency (which might be better to put in a seperated plugin):

• lua: https://github.com/fbriere/mpv-scripts/blob/master/scripts/brace-expand.lua
• python: https://github.com/trendels/braceexpand

[lambdalisue]

Well, brace expansion in vim is not portable even in the Unix world. AFAIK it won't work on busybox. A portable solution might need a tedious vimscript implementation (which doesn't seem worth it), or some external dependency (which might be better to put in a seperated plugin):

Well, I agree that perfect portability does not worth while I think nobody expect fern works on busybox or so on. However, I think Windows is one of quite common environment thus I think it worth to support it.