Creating a file with multiple lines of content
I sometimes remember to script stuff I do multiple times by hand.
For my Exercism exercises, I have created a minor helper script to set up the directory for solving the exercise, using Git and eliminating use of GitHub copilot, since it spoils the fun.
For the last part I need to write several lines to the VScode setting file, so it would look as follows:
{
"github.copilot.enable": {
"*": false
}
}
From my shell script, this can be accomplished as follows:
# VScode specific
# disable GitHub Copilot
echo "Disabling GitHub Copilot in VScode via Workspace settings"
mkdir .vscode
cat <<EOT >> .vscode/settings.json
{
"github.copilot.enable": {
"*": false
}
}
EOT
So all from <<EOT until EOT os concatenated into: .vscode/settings.json.
Just simple and marvellous.
The solution is what is called Here documents a feature I know from Perl, but not often use.
Since I writing a new file, the construct should be changed to:
# VScode specific
# disable GitHub Copilot
echo "Disabling GitHub Copilot in VScode via Workspace settings"
mkdir .vscode
cat <<EOT > .vscode/settings.json
{
"github.copilot.enable": {
"*": false
}
}
EOT
Since >> appends to an existing file or creates it if does not exist and > just directs the output and creates the file, overwriting it if exists.
I cannot really handle appending since the file is a JSON structure so this would require working on the JSON, not just appending.