A todo management system in a gist

todo

#!/usr/bin/env bash

set -e
if [[ $# > 0 ]]; then
  case "$1" in

    -h | -\? | --help )
      {
        echo "Add a todo:"
        echo "        todo Reformulate the widget plans."
        echo "See what you have to do:"
        echo "        todo"
        echo "After you've done item 4:"
        echo "        todo -4"
        echo "Count items left to do:"
        echo "        todo -c"
        echo "Print todos without line numbers:"
        echo "        todo --raw"
        echo "Read todos from cat: and git: lines:"
        echo "        todo -g"
        echo "Grep git in specific directories for TODOs:"
        echo "        todo -g src test"
        echo "Edit the todo list directly (using $EDITOR):"
        echo "        todo -e"
      } >&2
      ;;

    -c | --count )
      if [ -r TODO ]; then
        exec wc -l TODO
      else
        echo 0 TODO
      fi
      ;;

    --raw )
      if [ -r TODO ]; then
        exec cat TODO
      fi
      ;;

    -e | --edit )
      shift
      exec $EDITOR TODO "$@"
      ;;

    -g | --git )
      shift

      sed -n 's/^cat:\(.*\)/\1/p' TODO | xargs cat

      if [[ $# -gt 0 ]]; then
        for i in "$@"; do echo "$i"; done
      else
        sed -n 's/^git:\(.*\)/\1/p' TODO
      fi | xargs git grep TODO || echo No TODOs known to git!

      exec "$0"
      ;;

    -* | x* )
      lineno=$(cut -c2- <<<"$1")
      sed -i.bak "$lineno d" TODO && rm -f TODO.bak
      echo Deleted item $lineno. >&2
      echo
      exec "$0"
      ;;

    * )
      echo "$@" >> TODO
      ;;

  esac
elif [ -r TODO ]; then

  if grep -q . TODO; then
    awk 'BEGIN { n = 1 } { printf "[%d]\t%s\n", n, $0; n = n + 1 }' TODO
  else
    echo Nothing to do!
  fi

else
  echo Nothing to do!
fi

If I'm working on something in a terminal (coding, code review, documenting), I often want somewhere to jot down things I just thought of, so I can come back to them later. They tend to be too fine-grained / low-level / transient to keep in a proper task manager or bug tracker. A file in the working directory is just right.

This makes it a tiny bit easier to maintain such a file, without sacrificing the power of plain text. Want to filter tasks? grep. Need to edit or reorder? $EDITOR is there for you.

It's also, I think, a nice example of how useful - and readable - a brief shell script can be.