getgists.sh

#!/bin/bash
#+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
#| Title  : Bash Script to Download Selected Gists                             |
#| Author : jkk                                                                |
#| Date   : 26-04-2010                                                         |
#+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

if [ $# -eq 0 ] ; then
   cat 1>&2 <<USAGE_TEXT
$0: missing gist id(s)
Usage: $0 gist_id... 
USAGE_TEXT
   exit;
fi

#do the following steps for all gists inputted
for gist in $@; do

   #Using wget command to download the gist as a tar.gz archive from github
   wget http://gist.github.com/gists/$gist/download 1>/dev/null 2>&1 -O $gist.tar.gz;
   if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
      echo "Error when downloading from http://gist.github.com/gists/$gist/download"
      continue
   fi
   
   #Extract the file from the tar.gz archive to standard output and redirect to 
   #the contents to a 'c' file of that name
   tar -zxvf $gist.tar.gz -O 2>/dev/null >$gist.c; #<-- C EXTENSION
   
   #Remove the temporary tar.gz archive
   rm $gist.tar.gz;

   #Display Message
   echo "Gist id($gist) successfully downloaded to $gist.c"; #<-- C EXTENSION
   
done

<< AUTHOR_NOTES
1. This assumes that one gist contains only one file. If multiple files are present in a single gist, they are concatenated to a single file.
2. This appends a '.c' extension to the downloaded files. Search using 'C EXTENSION' to find the places where you can change this.
AUTHOR_NOTES