All commands

All commands (14,187)

sorted by

Format ps command output

ps command gives the possibility to display information with custom formatting with the -o options followed by the format specifier list. Show Sample Output

ps ax -o "%p %U %u %x %c %n"

servermanaged · 2009-07-14 17:21:59 9

Paste OS X clipboard contents to a file on a remote machine

Redirects the contents of your clipboard through a pipe, to a remote machine via SSH.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
3

pbpaste | ssh user@hostname 'cat > ~/my_new_file.txt'

mikedamage · 2009-07-14 16:32:03 3
Create a tar archive using 7z compression

Using 7z to create archives is OK, but when you use tar, you preserve all file-specific information such as ownership, perms, etc. If that's important to you, this is a better way to do it.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
8

tar cf - /path/to/data | 7z a -si archivename.tar.7z

slashdot · 2009-07-14 14:21:30 7
Blank/erase a DVD-RW
This is sample output - yours may be different.
4

dvd+rw-format -force /dev/dvd1

unixmonkey4640 · 2009-07-14 14:18:33 5
Fast grepping (avoiding UTF overhead)

greps using only ascii, skipping the overhead of matching UTF chars. Some stats: $ export LANG=C; time grep -c Quit /var/log/mysqld.log 7432 real 0m0.191s user 0m0.112s sys 0m0.079s $ export LANG=en_US.UTF-8; time grep -c Quit /var/log/mysqld.log 7432 real 0m13.462s user 0m9.485s sys 0m3.977s Try strace-ing grep with and without LANG=C
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

export LANG=C; grep string longBigFile.log

ioggstream · 2009-07-14 12:48:02 9
git remove files which have been deleted

I've used technicalpickles command a lot, but this one handles whitespaces in filenames. I'm sure you want to create an alias for it :) Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
$ git status
# On branch master
# Changed but not updated:
#   (use "git add/rm <file>..." to update what will be committed)
#
#	deleted:    some file
#	deleted:    some_file
#	deleted:    somefile
#
no changes added to commit (use "git add" and/or "git commit -a")
$ git ls-files -z --deleted | xargs -0 git rm
rm 'some file'
rm 'some_file'
rm 'somefile'
```
7

git ls-files -z --deleted | xargs -0 git rm

blindgaenger · 2009-07-14 08:29:38 5
find all non-html files
This is sample output - yours may be different.
4

find . -type f ! -name "*html"

sharfah · 2009-07-14 07:56:38 3
find external links in all html files in a directory list

Just a handy way to get all the unique links from inside all the html files inside a directory. Can be handy on scripts etc. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
http://fonts.apple.com/TTRefMan/index.html
http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/ttf2pt1.htm
http://heliotrope.homestead.com/files/printsoft.html
http://linuxartist.org/fonts/
```
4

find . -name '*.html' -print0| xargs -0 -L1 cat |sed "s/[\"\<\>' \t;]/\n/g" |grep "http://" |sort -u

jamespitt · 2009-07-14 07:00:15 10
Get a range of SVN revisions from svn diff and tar gz them

Handy when you need to create a list of files to be updated when subversion is not available on the remote host. You can take this tar file, and upload and extract it where you need it. Replace M and N with the revisions specific to yours. Make sure you do this from an updated (svn up) working directory.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
2

tar cvfz changes.tar.gz --exclude-vcs `svn diff -rM:N --summarize . | grep . | awk '{print $2}' | grep -E -v '^\.$'`

jaysee · 2009-07-13 19:39:10 12
Search through files, ignoring .svn
This is sample output - yours may be different.
2

grep <pattern> -R . --exclude-dir='.svn'

log0 · 2009-07-13 19:08:53 6
Find files with lines that do not match a pattern

This one would be much faster, as it's only one executed command.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1

fmiss() { grep -RL "$*" * }

inkel · 2009-07-13 18:30:54 5
Watch number of lines being processed on a clear screen

awk can clear the screen while displaying output. This is a handy way of seeing how many lines a tail -f has hit or see how many files find has found. On solaris, you may have to use 'nawk' and your machine needs 'tput' Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
13164
```
0

cat /dev/urandom|awk 'BEGIN{"tput cuu1" | getline CursorUp; "tput clear" | getline Clear; printf Clear}{num+=1;printf CursorUp; print num}'

axelabs · 2009-07-13 07:30:51 5
unzip all .zip files in /example/directory

Simple but useful little command to unzip all files in a directory.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-5

cd /example/directory && unzip \*.zip

Paaskehare · 2009-07-12 21:45:13 6
Sorting by rows

Save the script as: sort_file Usage: sort_file < sort_me.csv > out_file.csv This script was originally posted by Admiral Beotch in LinuxQuestions.org on the Linux-Software forum. I modified this script to make it more portable. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
Sort values arranged in rows, like:
x3, x5, x1, x4, x7, x2, x6
x11, x13, x14, x8, x10, x12, x9
... ... ... ... ... ... ...
After executing the script, values will be horizontally sorted:
x1, x2, x3, x4, x5, x6, x7
x8, x9, x10, x11, x12, x13, x14
... ... ... ... ... ... ...
where x1, x2, ..., xn are integers
Each row can have n integers and 
x1 < x2 < x3, ..., < x7
x8 < x9 < x10, ..., < x14
..   ..   ..           ..
After executing the script, each row will be sorted in ascending order.
```
0

infile=$1 for i in $(cat $infile) do echo $i | tr "," "\n" | sort -n | tr "\n" "," | sed "s/,$//" echo done

iframe · 2009-07-12 21:23:37 6
Using the urxvt terminal daemon

- for .xsession use - Advantages of running a urxvt daemon include faster creation time for terminal windows and a lot of saved memory. You can start new terminals as childs of urxvtd by typing urxvtc. Another advantage is, that background jobs are always owned by the urxvtd and will survive as long the daemon is running.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
4

urxvtd -q -o -f

wattafunnyname · 2009-07-12 14:09:06 3
find out which directories in /home have the most files currently open
This is sample output - yours may be different.
2

lsof |awk ' {if ( $0 ~ /home/) print substr($0, index($0,"/home") ) }'|cut -d / -f 1-4|sort|uniq -c|sort -bgr

lucainvernizzi · 2009-07-12 02:25:57 3
Test if the given argument is a valid ip address.

This command will output 1 if the given argument is a valid ip address and 0 if it is not. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
1
```
0

perl -e '$p=qr!(?:0|1\d{0,2}|2(?:[0-4]\d?|5[0-5]?|[6-9])?|[3-9]\d?)!;print((shift=~m/^$p\.$p\.$p\.$p$/)?1:0);' 123.123.123.123

speaker · 2009-07-12 00:24:29 3
Outputs files with ascii art in the intended form.

Files containing ascii art (e.g. with .nfo extension) are typically not correctly reproduced at the command line when using cat. With iconv one can easily write a wrapper to solve this: #!/bin/bash if [ -z "$@" ]; then echo "Usage: $(basename $0) file [file] ..." else iconv -f437 -tutf8 "$@"; fi exit 0
This is sample output - yours may be different.
9

iconv -f437 -tutf8 asciiart.nfo

speaker · 2009-07-11 23:50:05 8
Hear the mice moving

Beeps on mouse's every move. Bear in mind that, at least on Ubuntu, /dev/input/mice can be read only by root.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
4

while true; do beep -l66 -f`head -c2 /dev/input/mice|hexdump -d|awk 'NR==1{print $2%10000}'`; done

5z474n · 2009-07-11 12:01:27 22
Use xdg-open to avoid hard coding browser commands

I rarely use the system menu to start applications. I use keyboard shortcuts instead. Keyboard shortcuts are convenient time savers. To configure the shortcuts I use gconf-editor or CompizConfig Settings Manager (if I have Compiz turned on). Lately I've been using Chromium as my browser. Since Chromium is under heavy development it occasionally becomes unusable and I have to switch back to Firefox. I was hard-coding the browser command in my keyboard shortcuts. This became problematic with frequent browser hopping. I now use the xdg-open command when defining my keyboard shortcuts. xdg-open opens a file or URL in the user's preferred application. In the metacity keybinging_commands I have xdg-open http://gmail.com where I used to have firefox http://gmail.com. Now when switching browsers I don't have to update each keyboard binding command I just change my default browser in Ubuntu by clicking through the menu: System / Preferences / Preferred Applications / Web Browser. xdg-open is more convenient for this browser hopper.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
8

xdg-open http://gmail.com

PLA · 2009-07-11 11:48:32 10
kill some process (same as others) but parsing to a variable
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-4

tokill=`ps -fea|grep process|awk '{ printf $2" "}'`; kill -9 $tokill;

jhansen · 2009-07-11 01:40:29 7
Beep siren

Infinitely plays beeps with sinusoidally changing sound frequency. Ideal for alarm on an event.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1

tempo=33; slope=10; maxfreq=888; function sinus { echo "s($1/$slope)*$maxfreq"|bc -l|tr -d '-'; }; for((i=1;;i++)); do beep -l$tempo -f`sinus $i`; done

5z474n · 2009-07-10 21:24:11 3
Move files around local filesystem with tar without wasting space using an intermediate tarball.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-1

tar -C <source> -cf - . | tar -C <destination> -xf -

Tekhne · 2009-07-10 21:16:23 4
Use Cygwin to talk to the Windows clipboard

I spent a bunch of time yesterday looking for the xsel package in Cygwin- turns out you can use the /dev/clipboard device to do the same thing. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
$ ls        
$ touch testfile
$ ls
testfile
$ ls > /dev/clipboard
$ cat /dev/clipboard
testfile
```
13

cat /dev/clipboard; $(somecommand) > /dev/clipboard

sud0er · 2009-07-10 18:48:21 5
write text or append to a file

If you just want to write or append some text to a file without having to run a text editor, run this command. After running the command, start typing away. To exit, type . on a line by itself. Replacing the >> with a single > will let you overwrite your file. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
> here is a line
> here is another line
> .
```
4

cat <<.>> somefilename

tomlouie · 2009-07-10 17:45:42 11
‹ First < 477 478 479 480 481 > Last ›

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

Quick access to the ascii table.

Use top to monitor only all processes with the same name fragment 'foo'

$ pgrep foo may return several pids for process foobar footy01 etc. like this: 11427 12576 12577 sed puts "-p " in front and we pass a list to top: $ top -p 11427 -p 12576 -p 12577

tar exclude files or directories

If you want to exclude only one file or directory you should use as --exclude=file_or_directory

Generate a 18 character password, print the password and sha512 salted hash

Generate a 18 character password from character set a-zA-Z0-9 from /dev/urandom, pipe the output to Python which prints the password on standard out and in crypt sha512 form.

Which processes are listening on a specific port (e.g. port 80)

swap out "80" for your port of interest. Can use port number or named ports e.g. "http"

cleanup /tmp directory

Cleans all files in /tmp that have been accessed at least 2 days ago.

Which processes are listening on a specific port (e.g. port 80)

swap out "80" for your port of interest. Can use port number or named ports e.g. "http"

Convert CSV to JSON

Replace 'csv_file.csv' with your filename.

find previously entered commands (requires configuring .inputrc)

[Click the "show sample output" link to see how to use this keystroke.] Meta-p is one of my all time most used and most loved features of working at the command line. It's also one that surprisingly few people know about. To use it with bash (actually in any readline application), you'll need to add a couple lines to your .inputrc then have bash reread the .inputrc using the bind command: $ echo '"\en": history-search-forward' >> ~/.inputrc $ echo '"\ep": history-search-backward' >> ~/.inputrc $ bind -f ~/.inputrc I first learned about this feature in tcsh. When I switched over to bash about fifteen years ago, I had assumed I'd prefer ^R to search in reverse. Intuitively ^R seemed better since you could search for an argument instead of a command. I think that, like using a microkernel for the Hurd, it sounded so obviously right fifteen years ago, but that was only because the older way had benefits we hadn't known about. I think many of you who use the command line as much as I do know that we can just be thinking about what results we want and our fingers will start typing the commands needed. I assume it's some sort of parallel processing going on with the linguistic part of the brain. Unfortunately, that parallelism doesn't seem to work (at least for me) with searching the history. I realize I can save myself typing using the history shortly after my fingers have already started "speaking". But, when I hit ^R in Bash, everything I've already typed gets ignored and I have to stop and think again about what I was doing. It's a small bump in the road but it can be annoying, especially for long-time command line users. Usually M-p is exactly what I need to save myself time and trouble. If you use the command line a lot, please give Meta-p a try. You may be surprised how it frees your brain to process more smoothly in parallel. (Or maybe it won't. Post here and let me know either way. ☺)

using tee to echo to a system file with sudo privileges

We sometimes need to change kernel parameters by echoing the file . This needs root privilege and if we do it using sudo like this , it fails $ sudo echo ondemand > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor -bash: /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor: Permission denied We can achieve this with the tee command by just doing sudo without logging as root user http://www.zaman4linux.in/2010/09/using-tee-to-echo-to-system-file-with.html

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:

» all commands
» commands with 3 up-votes (commandlinefu3)
» commands with 10 up-votes (commandlinefu10)

All commands (14,187) the last day the last week the last month all time sorted by date votes

What's this?

Check These Out

Stay in the loop…

All commands (14,187)

sorted by