Tobias Schlitt - a passion for php

Jakob Westhoff (one of my usergroup fellows) created a tiny but very efficient bash script to avoid a big annoyance: I'm using "sudo" on my work station to not have the need to completly switch to root for administrative tasks. Still I usually forget to type "sudo" when I intend to edit a file with is not writeable for my current user. I asume people with similar environments know that problem. WI ([W]riteable checker for v[I]m) wraps around VIM on startup and checks the file permissions. If you may not edit the file, WI asks you if you want to start VI through sudo or quit.

#!/bin/sh
VIM=/usr/bin/vim
SUDO=/usr/bin/sudo

if [ -e $1 ] && [ ! -w $1 ] 
then
    read -er -p "The file $1 is not writable. Do you want to edit it as root? [yes/NO] " answer
    if [[ "$answer" =~ "y|yes|yeah|j|ja" ]]
    then
        $SUDO $VIM $*
    fi
else
    $VIM $*
fi

Really nice. Thanks Jakob!

^{P.S.: Don't forget to install phpDocumentor for VIM! ;)}