All commands (14,187)

What's this?

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

Share Your Commands


Check These Out

Swap a file or dir with quick resotre
This lets you replace a file or directory and quickly revert if something goes wrong. For example, the current version of a website's files are in public_html. Put a new version of the site in public_html~ and execute the command. The names are swapped. If anything goes wrong, execute it again (up arrow or !!).

Check ps output to see if file is running, if not start it
This comes in handy if you have daemons/programs that have potential issues and stop/disappear, etc., can be run in cron to ensure that a program remains up no matter what. Be advised though, if a program did core out, you'd likely want to know why (gdb) so use with caution on production machines.

iso-8859-1 to utf-8 safe recursive rename
This command is a powerful "detoxifier" that eliminates special chars, spaces and all those little chars we don't like. It support several "sequences" so be sure to check your /usr/local/etc/detoxrc while at it... and maybe define your own

exclude file(s) from rsync
rsyncs files to a server excluding listed files also a file can be used to exclude common exclude rules and/or to exclude a ton of files, like so: $rsync --exclude-from '~/.scripts/exclude.txt' where exclude.txt has one rule per line: *.mp3 *.svn*

Find usb device
I often use it to find recently added ou removed device, or using find in /dev, or anything similar. Just run the command, plug the device, and wait to see him and only him

Multiple SSH Tunnels
Thankfully, the ssh command allows you to specify multiple tunnels through the same server in one command. Remeber if you want a priviliged port on your machine, you must use root or sudo account.

bash shortcut: !$ !^ !* !:3 !:h and !:t
When expanding, bash output the command, so don't be affraid if you type the command. Here is the details: First examples: $echo foo bar foobar barfoo First argument: $echo !$ echo barfoo barfoo (Note that typing echo foo bar foobar barfoo && echo !$, bash substitute !$ with $:1) Last argument: $echo foo bar foobar barfoo && echo !^ echo foo bar foobar barfoo && echo barfoo foo bar foobar barfoo barfoo All the arguments: $echo !* echo foo bar foobar barfoo foo bar foobar barfoo The third argument: $echo foo bar foobar barfoo && echo !:3 echo foo bar foobar barfoo && echo foobar foo bar foobar barfoo foobar You may want to add {} for large numbers: echo !:{11} for example Now with path: $echo /usr/bin/foobar /usr/bin/foobar For the head: $echo !$:h echo /usr/bin /usr/bin And the tail: $echo !$:t echo foobar foobar You also may want to try !:h and !:t or !!3-4 for the third and the fourth (so !!:* == !!:1-$)

Insert the last argument of the previous command
for example if you did a: $ ls -la /bin/ls then $ ls !$ is equivalent to doing a $ ls /bin/ls

list files recursively by size

move you up one directory quickly
Alias a single character 'b' to move to parent directory. Put it into your .bashrc or .profile file. Using "cd .." is one of the most repetitive sequence of characters you'll in the command line. Bring it down to two keys 'b' and 'enter'. It stands for "back" Also useful to have multiple: alias b='cd ../' alias bb='cd ../../' alias bbb='cd ../../../' alias bbbb='cd ../../../../'


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: