Open new Terminal tabs from the command line

tab.bash

#!/bin/bash
#
# Open new Terminal tabs from the command line
#
# Author: Justin Hileman (http://justinhileman.com)
#
# Installation:
#     Add the following function to your `.bashrc` or `.bash_profile`,
#     or save it somewhere (e.g. `~/.tab.bash`) and source it in `.bashrc`
#
# Usage:
#     tab                   Opens the current directory in a new tab
#     tab [PATH]            Open PATH in a new tab
#     tab [CMD]             Open a new tab and execute CMD
#     tab [PATH] [CMD] ...  You can prob'ly guess

# Only for teh Mac users
[ `uname -s` != "Darwin" ] && return

function tab () {
    local cmd=""
    local cdto="$PWD"
    local args="$@"

    if [ -d "$1" ]; then
        cdto=`cd "$1"; pwd`
        args="${@:2}"
    fi

    if [ -n "$args" ]; then
        cmd="; $args"
    fi

    osascript &>/dev/null <<EOF
        tell application "iTerm"
            tell current terminal
                launch session "Default Session"
                tell the last session
                    write text "cd \"$cdto\"$cmd"
                end tell
            end tell
        end tell
EOF
}

tab.fish

# Open new iTerm and Terminal tabs from the command line
#
# Author: Justin Hileman (http://justinhileman.com)
#
# Usage:
#     tab                   Opens the current directory in a new tab
#     tab [PATH]            Open PATH in a new tab
#     tab [CMD]             Open a new tab and execute CMD
#     tab [PATH] [CMD] ...  You can prolly guess

function tab -d "Open the current directory in a new tab"
  set -l cmd ""
  set -l cdto (pwd)

  if test (count $argv) -gt 0
    pushd . >/dev/null
    if test -d $argv[1]
      cd $argv[1]
      set cdto (pwd)
      set -e argv[1]
    end
    popd >/dev/null
  end

  if test (count $argv) -gt 0
    set cmd "; $argv"
  end

  switch $TERM_PROGRAM

  case 'iTerm.app'
    osascript 2>/dev/null -e "
      tell application \"iTerm\"
        tell current terminal
          launch session \"Default Session\"
          tell the last session
            write text \"cd \\\"$cdto\\\"$cmd\"
          end tell
        end tell
      end tell
    "

  case 'Apple_Terminal'
    osascript 2>/dev/null -e "
      tell application \"Terminal\"
        activate
        tell application \"System Events\" to keystroke \"t\" using command down
        repeat while contents of selected tab of window 1 starts with linefeed
          delay 0.01
        end repeat
        do script \"cd \\\"$cdto\\\"$cmd\" in window 1
      end tell
    "

  case '*'
    echo "Unknown terminal: $TERM_PROGRAM" >&2
  end
end

Dangerously buggy if passed a multi-argument list -- you wouldn't want to tab ls /tmp/* if you weren't 100% certain that there didn't exist a file created with touch '/tmp/$(rm -rf $HOME)' -- and also has issues with arguments with spaces and quotes. First commented the below on vitalybe's fork, but it's relevant here too:

---

printf -v args '%q ' "$@", if you want to generate your arguments in eval-safe form. Otherwise, you're inviting bugs -- local args="$@" flattens the original array into a string, and a string can't store array boundaries in a safe way without escaping.

To provide an example:

$ set -- "first arg" "second arg" "third arg"
$ args_flat="$@"
$ args_arr=( "$@" )
$ declare -p args_flat args_arr
declare -- args_flat="first arg second arg third arg"
declare -a args_arr='([0]="first arg" [1]="second arg" [2]="third arg")'

Now, if your goal is an eval-safe string, that would look like this:

$ printf -v args_str '%q ' "$@"
$ declare -p args_str
declare -- args_str="first\\ arg second\\ arg third\\ arg "

What this did is generate a chunk of script which, if parsed by a shell, will evaluate back to its original inputs -- with first arg, second arg, and third arg each still recognized as separate words. This is thus something you could safely append to cmd.

Dude, this is exactly what I was looking for. Thank-you!

Forked and modified to open new horizontal panes

I'm getting this, any idea?

~/dotfiles ☀️  ✖ 1 $ tab ls
58:66: syntax error: Expected end of line but found identifier. (-2741)

@cmer

Looks like a newer version of osascript or iterm has caused this error. I found the updated syntax to use on iterms site which has given me this updated code. Cheers.

# needed to use exit instead of return
[ `uname -s` != "Darwin" ] && echo "Cannot run on non-macosx system." && exit

function tab () {
    local cmd=""
    local cdto="$PWD"
    local args="$@"

    if [ -d "$1" ]; then
        cdto=`cd "$1"; pwd`
        args="${@:2}"
    fi

    if [ -n "$args" ]; then
        cmd="$args"
    fi

    osascript -i <<EOF
        tell application "iTerm"
            tell current window
                create tab with default profile
                tell the current session
                    write text "cd \"$cdto\"; $cmd"
                end tell
            end tell
        end tell
EOF
}

tab "echo hello"

@Jackman3005,

Thanks for the update! The code worked, but I was having trouble running the command (i.e. cmd). Made changes to my code, in case anyone else wants to use it (am using iTerm2):

function tab () {
    local cdto="$PWD"
    local args="$@"

    if [ -d "$1" ]; then
        cdto=`cd "$1"; pwd`
        args="${@:2}"
    fi

    osascript -i <<EOF
        tell application "iTerm2"
                tell current window
                        create tab with default profile
                        tell the current session
                                write text "cd \"$cdto\" && $args"
                        end tell
                end tell
        end tell
EOF
}

Cheers!

As of at least macos Mojave, iTerm 3.2.8, if you run:

$ open -a iTerm .

It will add it as a tab to the current window.

$ open -a iTerm .

Sure, just destroy all their hard work. But, thanks!

Somehow it doesn't work so I change a bit to make sure it addresses my needs: to open a tab vertically and run the command.

#!/bin/bash

[ `uname -s` != "Darwin" ] && return

function tab () {
    local cmd=""
    local cdto="$PWD"
    local args="$@"

    if [ -d "$1" ]; then
        cdto=`cd "$1"; pwd`
        args="${@:2}"
    fi

    if [ -n "$args" ]; then
        cmd="; $args"
    fi

    osascript &>/dev/null <<EOF
        tell application "iTerm"
            activate
            tell current session of current window to set newTab to split vertically with same profile
            tell newTab
                select
                write text "cd \"$cdto\"$cmd"
            end tell 
        end tell
EOF
}

Save it to a file, source it and test it by:

tab echo 123

noob question - will this work with zsh too?

@newplasticideas there are currently bash and fish implementations. it's possible to port this to zsh as well, but if you're going to do that, i'd suggest starting with https://github.com/oh-my-fish/plugin-tab which has been updated more recently and supports a lot more terminals :)

ITerm2's Applescript is deprecated. Take a look at the Python API and this example: https://iterm2.com/python-api/tutorial/example.html