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Recursive grep of all c++ source under the current directory
I like this better than some of the alternatives using -exec, because if I want to change the string, it's right there at the end of the command line. That means less editing effort and more time to drink coffee.

cycle through a 256 colour palette
Rainbow, instead of greys

Diff two directories by finding and comparing the md5 checksums of their contents.
Compute the md5 checksums for the contents of two mirrored directories, then sort and diff the results. If everything matches, nothing is returned. Otherwise, any checksums which do not match, or which exist in one tree but not the other, are returned. As you might imagine, the output is useful only if no errors are found, because only the checksums, not filenames, are returned. I hope to address this, or that someone else will!

turn off auto hard disc boot scanning for ext3

list files recursively by size

Filter out all blank or commented (starting with #) lines

Remove duplicate rows of an un-sorted file based on a single column
The command (above) will remove any duplicate rows based on the FIRST column of data in an un-sorted file. The '$1' represents a positional parameter. You can change both instances of '$1' in the command to remove duplicates based on a different column, for instance, the third: $ awk '{ if ($3 in stored_lines) x=1; else print; stored_lines[$3]=1 }' infile.txt > outfile.txt Or you can change it to '$0' to base the removal on the whole row: $ awk '{ if ($0 in stored_lines) x=1; else print; stored_lines[$0]=1 }' infile.txt > outfile.txt ** Note: I wouldn't use this on a MASSIVE file, unless you're RAM-rich ;) **

keep a log of the active windows
This logs the titles of the active windows, thus you can monitor what you have done during which times. (it is not hard to also log the executable name, but then it is gets too long)

Output files without comments or empty lines
better integration. works on all Unices works one bash and ksh.


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