how2: stackoverflow from the terminal
how2 finds the simplest way to do something in a unix shell.
It's like man, but you can query it in natural language:
Install
You can install it via npm:
npm install -g how2
if it gives you EACCES errors, you need to fix npm permissions. Or you can just use sudo npm install -g how2 if you don't care.
If you don't have npm
Then just install NodeJS.
On Ubuntu
Install node: sudo apt-get install nodejs npm
Make a symlink: ln -s /usr/bin/nodejs /usr/bin/node
Then install how2: npm install -g how2
On Mac
Install node with brew: brew install node.
If you don't have brew, download nodejs from here
Then install how2: npm install -g how2
If you get "/usr/bin/env: node: No such file or directory"
Your Linux distro (like Ubuntu) probably uses "nodejs" instead of "node".
Make a symlink and it should work:
ln -s /usr/bin/nodejs /usr/bin/node
Usage
If you don't specify a language it defaults to Bash unix command line. how2 tries to give you immediately the most likely answer:
After that you can press SPACE to go to the interactive mode, where you can choose a different stackoverflow question/answer.
You can use -l lang to find answers for other languages:
Copy-Paste with mouse
When you are in "interactive mode" (after you press SPACE), if you want to copy-paste more than one line you can use block-select:
With Ubuntu try holding Ctrl+Alt before you select, or Alt+Cmd if you're in iTerm on Mac.
(thanks to @danielkop for this suggestion).
Can i use it behind Proxy ?
Yes, you need to use HTTP_PROXY or HTTPS_PROXY environment variables.
For example, you could alias the proxy seetings in your ~/.bash_profile:
alias how2="HTTPS_PROXY='your_proxy:8888' how2"
How does it work?
It uses Google and Stackoverflow APIs, because Stackoverflow search on its own doesn't works as well.
Why?
Because I can never remember how to do certain things. And reading man pages always takes too long.
Taken from https://xkcd.com/1168/
TODO
- Add automatic copy/paste from -i to command line