Get plugin directory from outside vd

[geekscrapy]

Hi! It has been a long time, I hope you are all well!!!!!

I was wondering if it was possible to get the options.visidata_dir value from outside of running vd?

My scenario is that I want to provide some commands which download and install a plugin file with zero effort. Something like:

curl -q "$URL" -o $(python -c 'from visidata import options; print(options.visidata_dir)')/plugins/$(basename "$URL")

TIA!

[midichef]

Hello again! This command should do what you want. The idea is to use -P options-global to open the options sheet. Then -b, for batch mode, to run commands noninteractively, and print out the options sheet when visidata exits.

vd -b -P options-global 2>/dev/null |grep '^visidata_dir\>' |cut -f 2

[saulpw]

@geekscrapy, your exact python command worked for me with the latest visidata develop; does it not work for you?

[geekscrapy]

My command will get the default for the OS, rather than whatever is set in .visidatarc. Plus yours actually runs a whoooole lot faster for some reason.

I tweaked yours slightly, so we have a standard output format (if the user has it set already in the rc file), and made it OS agnostic
vd --save_filetype=tsv -b -P options-global 2>/dev/null | egrep '^visidata_dir\s+' | awk '{print $2}'

Thanks again

[midichef]

Good improvements, but leave off -N, which would cause any setting in the .visidatarc to be ignored.

[geekscrapy]

Good improvements, but leave off -N, which would cause any setting in the .visidatarc to be ignored.

Doh! Yeah that negated the whole point 😅 it was added during testing - modified it.

Thanks