Most of this README is reproduced at http://wcm1.web.rice.edu/search-engines-from-command-line.html.

This repo was inspired by Lincoln Mullen's post about How to Hack URLs for Faster Searches in Your Browser. His tips showed how to add different search engines to Google Chrome, but it got me thinking about how I could do something similar from the command line. A few bash functions later, I now have an easy way to search Google Scholar, Flickr, IMDb, and even proprietary databases in my university library---all in the browser of my choice. For example, say I want to search Google Scholar. At the command line, I can now just type this:

$ scholar "benedict anderson imagined communities"

And I get this. Or if I want to search the Handbook of Texas Online, I type this:

$ hotx "monroe edwards"

And I get these results. I can even use Google Translate to get Spanish translations of English words. I type:

$ spanish "it's hot outside"

And I get a quick translation.

My method is basically to create a series of bash functions that use the built-in Mac OS X open command. I've put these functions in a GitHub repository. To use them yourself, just copy the se-aliases.sh file to your computer, and then add this line to your .bashrc file (or create one if you don't have one):

$ source path/to/se-aliases.sh

P.S. I did a little googling after my initial post and found someone else doing exactly the same thing, with some slight variations in the way input is handled. Check it out!