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

gvim in full screen (execute again to toggle full screen on/off)
Only under linux. Requires Gvim compiled with "clientserver" functionality and wmctrl command installed on system. Instead of servername can be used the current edited file name. Put it in a function and map it for get rid of "Press a key" after execution.

Alias to edit and source your .bashrc file
Place the line above in your ~/.bahsrc file. Now every time you issue the 'vb' command, you invoke the vim editor to edit it, then source it so the changes take effect immediately. Notes: * This mechanism is not working well if your .bashrc contains commands that should not be sourced more than once. * This trick also work for your csh or tclsh users: place the following line in your ~/.cshrc file: alias vc 'vim ~/.cshrc; source ~/.cshrc Thank you adzap for pointing out the missing quote

Rename files in batch

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"

Search for files older than 30 days in a directory and list only their names not the full path

Use a var with more text only if it exists
See "Parameter Expansion" in the bash manpage. They refer to this as "Use Alternate Value", but we're including the var in the at alternative.

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 !!).

Reuse all parameter of the previous command line
!* is all of the arguments to the previous command rather than just the last one. This is useful in many situations. Here's a simple example: $ vi cd /stuff oops! [exit vi, twice] $ !* expands to: cd /stuff

Install pip with Proxy
Installs pip packages defining a proxy

Invert selection with find.


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: