Hide

What's this?

commandlinefu.com is the place to record those command-line gems that you return to again and again.

Delete that bloated snippets file you've been using and share your personal repository with the world. That way others can gain from your CLI wisdom and you from theirs too. All commands can be commented on, discussed and voted up or down.

If you have a new feature suggestion or find a bug, please get in touch via http://commandlinefu.uservoice.com/

Get involved!

You can sign-in using OpenID credentials, or register a traditional username and password.

OpenID
or
Sign in Register

First-time OpenID users will be automatically assigned a username which can be changed after signing in.

Hide

Stay in the loop…

Follow the Tweets.

Every new command is wrapped in a tweet and posted to Twitter. Following the stream is a great way of staying abreast of the latest commands. For the more discerning, there are Twitter accounts for commands that get a minimum of 3 and 10 votes - that way only the great commands get tweeted.

» http://twitter.com/commandlinefu
» http://twitter.com/commandlinefu3
» http://twitter.com/commandlinefu10

Subscribe to the feeds.

Use your favourite RSS aggregator to stay in touch with the latest commands. There are feeds mirroring the 3 Twitter streams as well as for virtually every other subset (users, tags, functions,…):

Subscribe to the feed for:

Hide

News

2011-03-12 - Confoo 2011 presentation
Slides are available from the commandlinefu presentation at Confoo 2011: http://presentations.codeinthehole.com/confoo2011/
2011-01-04 - Moderation now required for new commands
To try and put and end to the spamming, new commands require moderation before they will appear on the site.
2010-12-27 - Apologies for not banning the trolls sooner
Have been away from the interwebs over Christmas. Will be more vigilant henceforth.
2010-09-24 - OAuth and pagination problems fixed
Apologies for the delay in getting Twitter's OAuth supported. Annoying pagination gremlin also fixed.
Hide

Tags

Hide

Functions

Hide

Credits

Site by David Winterbottom (user root).

All commands

All commands from sorted by
Terminal - All commands - 9,169 results
function rjust_file_nums() {for i in *.ogg; do; mv $i `ruby -e "print ARGV.first.gsub(/\d+/){|d| d.rjust($1,'0')}" $i`; done}
2012-05-19 15:41:06
User: timrand
Functions: mv
0
Up
Down
convert single digit to double digits

each number in a file name gets expanded to the number of digets provided as arg_1 of the arguments in rjust_file_nums. Put the funciton in the .bashrc file. Be sure to $ source ~/.bashrc so that the function will be accessible from bash.

Show sample output | Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
function rjust_file_nums(){for i in *.ogg; do; mv $i `ruby -e "print ARGV.first.gsub(/\d+/){|d| d.rjust($1,'0')}" $i`; done }
2012-05-19 15:39:39
User: timrand
Functions: mv
0
Up
Down
convert single digit to double digits

each number in a file name gets expanded to the number of digets provided as arg_1 of the arguments in rjust_file_nums. Put the funciton in the .bashrc file. Be sure to $ source ~/.bashrc so that the function will be accessible from bash.

Show sample output | Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
svn import /home/kaz/myproject svn+ssh://svn.FOO.codehaus.org/home/projects/FOO/scm/project1/trunk
2012-05-19 13:26:52
User: evandrix
0
Up
Down
import a new set of files located in a local directory into a remote Subversion repository
Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
iotop -a -p $(sed 's, , -p ,g' <<<`pgrep "_raid|_resync|jbd2"`)
2012-05-17 19:45:02
User: AskApache
Functions: sed
Tags: sed askapache raid iotop
0
Up
Down
Monitor RAID IO Usage

Shows the IO of the raid sync

Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
slow () { [ -n $1 ] && while kill -STOP $1; do sleep 1; kill -CONT $1; sleep 1; done }
2012-05-16 19:16:50
User: makidoko
Functions: kill sleep
Tags: io
0
Up
Down
Slow down IO heavy process

compare to alternative :

- directly tests the -STOP of the process to continue or stop loop,

- background operator should be set (or not) at the call of the function

For extension i suggest a slowPID() based on kill like above and a slowCMD based on killall.

Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
curl ifconfig.me/all
2012-05-16 18:22:28
User: pykler
Tags: Network curl ip address
4
Up
Down
Get your external IP and Network Info

Gets all kind of info, ifconfig.me rocks ...

for just the ip addess you can use ifconfig.me or ifconfig.me/ip

Show sample output | Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
awk -F'\t' '{print $0 >>$5.tsv}'
2012-05-16 18:18:16
User: pykler
Functions: awk
Tags: awk split tsv
0
Up
Down
Split tsv file by fifth column ... or any column

Will split the std input lines into files grouped by the 5th column content.

Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
cd /System/Library/LaunchDaemons; sudo launchctl load -w com.apple.metadata.mds.plist
2012-05-16 15:42:10
User: evandrix
Functions: cd sudo
0
Up
Down
Spotlight Server Disabled
Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
slow () { [ -n $1 ] && while ps -p $1 >/dev/null ; do kill -STOP $1; sleep 1; kill -CONT $1; sleep 1; done & }
2012-05-16 12:13:30
User: igorfu
Functions: kill ps sleep
Tags: io
1
Up
Down
Slow down IO heavy process

Some IO intensive process make the system unresponsive. This function periodically starts/stops a process, which hopefully releases some resources for other activities.

This function is useful when ionice is not available

Show sample output | Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
up() { local x='';for i in $(seq ${1:-1});do x="$x../"; done;cd $x; }
2012-05-16 04:21:41
User: evil
Functions: cd seq
Tags: cd
2
Up
Down
Quickly CD Out Of Directories Without 5+ Aliases

I wrote this a long time ago, wondering why this wasn't floating around somewhere out there (at least not where I could find).. this seems much more simple than multiple aliases and can cd out of directories easier.

Show sample output | Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
tail -F /var/log/nginx/access.log | python -c 'exec("import sys,time\nl=0\ne=int(time.time())\nfor line in sys.stdin:\n\tt = int(time.time())\n\tl += 1\n\tif t > e:\n\t\te = t\n\t\tprint l\n\t\tl = 0")'
2012-05-15 21:56:46
User: pykler
Functions: python tail
Tags: tail python accesslog
0
Up
Down
Realtime lines per second in a log file

Realtime lines per second in a log file using python ... identical to perl version, except python is much better :)

Show sample output | Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
zmv '(?.ogg)' '0$1'
2012-05-15 18:17:09
User: bst
0
Up
Down
convert single digit to double digits

works only in zsh, requires autoload zmv

Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
for i in ?.ogg; do mv $i 0$i; done
2012-05-15 02:52:52
User: Bonster
Functions: mv
4
Up
Down
convert single digit to double digits

from

1.ogg

2.ogg

3.ogg

10.ogg

11.ogg

to

01.ogg

02.ogg

03.ogg

10.ogg

11.ogg

Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
ip li | grep ether | awk '{print $2}'
2012-05-14 23:22:18
User: minigeek
Functions: awk grep
0
Up
Down
Find Mac address
Comments (1) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
cat urls.txt | wget -i- -T 10 -t 3 --waitretry 1
2012-05-14 06:41:14
User: kev
Functions: cat wget
Tags: wget
2
Up
Down
download a list of urls
Comments (2) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
cat urls.txt | xargs -n1 curl -O --max-time 10 --retry 3 --retry-delay 1
2012-05-14 06:38:06
User: kev
Functions: cat xargs
Tags: curl
0
Up
Down
download a list of urls
Comments (1) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
cloc --force-lang=yaml --match-f='\.url$' .
2012-05-14 06:36:17
User: kev
Tags: cloc
0
Up
Down
count line of code
Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
ash prod<tab>
2012-05-12 19:51:02
User: c3w
Tags: ssh screen osx json ruby
-1
Up
Down
OSX Terminal helper with tab completion, ssh tunneling, and now screen re-attach

http://github.com/c3w/ash

. a Ruby SSH helper script

. reads a JSON config file to read host, FQDN, user, port, tunnel options

. changes OSX Terminal profiles based on host 'type'

USAGE:

put 'ash' ruby script in your PATH

modify and copy ashrc-dist to ~/.ashrc

configure OSX Terminal profiles, such as "webserver", "development", etc

run "ash myhostname" and away you go!

v.2 will re-attach to a 'screen' named in your ~/.ashrc

Show sample output | Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
find . | xargs xattr -d com.apple.quarantine
2012-05-09 23:06:51
User: brockangelo
Functions: find xargs
Tags: find xattr quarantine
-2
Up
Down
Remove the Apple quarantine

When downloading files on a Mac, Apple adds the x-attribute: com.apple.quarantine. Often, this makes it so you can't even run a ./configure. This command gets rid of the quarantine for all files in the current directory.

Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
cat /var/log/nginx/access.log | grep -oe '^[0-9.]\+' | perl -ne 'system("geoiplookup $_")' | grep -v found | grep -oe ', [A-Za-z ]\+$' | sort | uniq -c | sort -n
2012-05-08 13:28:25
User: theist
Functions: cat grep perl sort uniq
Tags: sort uniq geoip
-1
Up
Down
Per country GET report, based on access log. Easy to transform to unique IP

Per country GET report, based on access log. Easy to transform to unique IP

Show sample output | Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
cal 04 2012 | awk '{ $7 && X=$7 } END { print X }'
2012-05-06 23:43:21
User: flatcap
Functions: awk cal
Tags: Date manipulation awk date cal
2
Up
Down
Get the date for the last Saturday of a given month

If your locale has Monday as the first day of the week, like mine in the UK, change the two $7 into $6

Show sample output | Comments (1) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
(sp-sc sop://brokesopcast.com:3912/6002 3908 8908 &>/dev/null &); vlc http://localhost:8908/tv.asf
2012-05-06 19:52:57
User: andreisid
0
Up
Down
Watch sopcast stream with VLC

You can find Sopcast for linux on Softpedia:

http://linux.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Video/SopCast-21690.shtml

Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
ffmpeg -i input.ogv -vol $((256*4)) -vcodec copy output.ogv
2012-05-06 03:41:42
User: kev
Tags: ffmpeg
1
Up
Down
video volume boost
Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
curl -su username:passwd https://mail.google.com/mail/feed/atom | xmlstarlet sel -N x="http://purl.org/atom/ns#" -t -m //x:entry -v 'concat(position(), ":", x:title)' -n
2012-05-05 14:34:55
User: kev
Tags: curl xmlstarlet gmail
0
Up
Down
print unread gmail message
Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
ls "`defaults read com.apple.itunes NSNavLastRootDirectory`/iTunes/iTunes Music/Mobile Applications/" > filepath
2012-05-04 15:13:31
User: bunam
Functions: ls
Tags: ipad
1
Up
Down
export iPad, iPhone App list to txt file
Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate