How to pass a file that changes name to another command in Bash?

Question

I frequently use wget to download tarballs and zip files from the web, then either untar then or gunzip them. I do:

wget google.com/somefile.zip
unzip somefile.zip
rm somefile.zip

Is there a way for me to automatically pass the zip file to tar or unzip WHILE wget-ting? In pseudocode:

wget google.com/somfile.zip && unzip

RedGrittyBrick · Answer 1 · 2011-06-09 14:39:10Z

up vote 7 down vote accepted

You could avoid using intermediary files and the problem would disappear

wget -O - http://example.com/file.zip | funzip

answered Jun 9 '11 at 14:39

	So this will work despite not giving unzip the file name of the document? If so, +1 and accepted. Nice and clean. – MaxMackie Jun 9 '11 at 14:41
	Yeah, note the difference between `unzip` which acts on files and `funzip` which acts on `stdin`. – slhck Jun 9 '11 at 14:43
	ahhh yeah I didn't see that. Many thanks! – MaxMackie Jun 9 '11 at 14:47
	@MaxMackie yes, the `-O -` means 'output to stdout'. There is no file, no document. There's just a pipe directly to `funzip` which will extract to the CWD. – Rich Homolka Jun 9 '11 at 14:47
	I do rather like this one better than my answer. I've never run across funzip before! Thanks! – Kirk Jun 9 '11 at 14:56

feedback

slhck · Answer 2 · 2011-06-09 14:38:37Z

up vote 1 down vote

MYFILE=filename; wget google.com/${MYFILE} && unzip ${MYFILE} && rm -f ${MYFILE}

slhck
31.4k54162

answered Jun 9 '11 at 14:37

Kirk
1,402513

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Rich Homolka · Answer 3 · 2011-06-09 15:50:45Z

Both answers here work, and @RedGrittyBrick 's answer eliminates the temp file that you delete anyway (I'd accept his). I'll add another way.

You can do string manipulation on the variables you use for the URL to get the output file.

URL=google.com/somefile.zip
wget $URL
FILE=${URL##*/} # strip everything up to last /
unzip $FILE
rm -f $FILE

3 Answers