All commands

All commands (14,187)

sorted by

Shell function to create a menu of items which may be inserted into the X paste buffer.

The function will take a comma separated list of items to be 'selected' by xsel -i: smenu "First item to paste,Paste me #2,Third menu item" You will then be prompted to choose one of the menu items. After you choose, you will be able to paste the string by clicking the middle mouse button. The menu will keep prompting you to choose menu items until you break out with Control-C. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
> smenu "First item to paste,Paste me #2,Third menu item"
1) First item to paste
2) Paste me #2
3) Third menu item
#?
```
2

smenu() ( IFS=',' ; select x in $*; do echo "$x" | xsel -i; done )

bartonski · 2010-02-08 15:33:53 7
Edit all "text" files (exclude binary and directories) in the current directory
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-2

ls . | xargs file | grep text | sed "s/$.*$:.*/\1/" | xargs gedit

matthewbauer · 2010-02-08 02:06:40 6
Pipe text from shell to windows cut and paste buffer using PuTTY and XMing.

Set up X forwarding in PuTTY, with X display location set to :0.0 Launch PuTTY ssh session. Launch Xming. Make sure that display is set to :0.0 (this is default). echo "I'm going to paste this into WINDERS XP" | xsel -i will insert the string into the windows cut and paste buffer. Thanks to Dennis Williamson at stackoverflow.com for sharing...
This is sample output - yours may be different.
4

echo "I'm going to paste this into WINDERS XP" | xsel -i

bartonski · 2010-02-08 00:23:43 9
Recursively search a directory tree for all .php .inc .html .htm .css .js files for a certain string
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

find -type f -regex ".*\.$js\|php\|inc\|htm[l]?\|css$$" -exec grep -il 'searchstring' '{}' +

tuxilicious · 2010-02-07 23:41:00 5
run as system on windows

In 2014, ask a kind of specific UAC authorization to run due to his dangerousity.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-1

@echo off && sc create CmdAsSystem type= own type= interact binPath= "cmd /c start cmd /k (cd c:\ ^& color ec ^& title ***** SYSTEM *****)" && net start CmdAsSystem && sc delete CmdAsSystem

willemijns · 2010-02-07 15:28:28 4
Recursively search a directory tree for all .php .inc .html .htm .css .js files for a certain string

Use find to recursively make a list of all files from the current directory and downwards. The files have to have an extension of the ones listed. Then for every file found, grep it for 'searchString', returns the filename if searchString is found. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
./index.html
./lib/php/buttons.php
```
-1

find . -type f $ -name "*.js" -o -name "*.php" -o -name "*.inc" -o -name "*.html" -o -name "*.htm" -o -name "*.css" $ -exec grep -il 'searchString' {} \;

niels_bom · 2010-02-07 15:28:20 3
OpenDns IP update via curl

Your IP is resolved by OpenDns Server (like a caller ID telephone, every server knows who is calling ;-) Change user:password by yours Be Happy Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Sun, 07 Feb 2010 02:29:19 GMT
Server: Apache
X-Powered-By: PHP/5.2.0-8+etch7
Content-Length: 20
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8

good 189.102.222.232[mm@localhost ~]$
```
2

curl -i -m 60 -k -u user:password 'https://updates.opendns.com/account/ddns.php?'

m33600 · 2010-02-07 02:40:38 5
Use bash history with process substitution

Bash has a great history system of its commands accessed by the ! built-in history expansion operator (documented elsewhere on this site or on the web). You can combine the ! operator inside the process redirection Very handy. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
diff <(!!) <(!510)
diff <(ls | perl -ple 's/\..*$//' | sort) <(sort fnam.txt)
... diff output between the last command and command line 510
```
7

<(!!)

drewk · 2010-02-06 18:35:10 8
How many days until the end of the year
This is sample output - yours may be different.
4

echo "There are $(($(date +%j -d"Dec 31, $(date +%Y)")-$(date +%j))) left in year $(date +%Y)."

unixhome · 2010-02-06 00:15:40 13
Weather on the Command line

Get your weather from a weather station just blocks from your home. Go to http://www.wunderground.com/wundermap/ and find a weather station near you. Click on a temperature bubble for that area. When the window pops up, click on hypertext link with the station ID, then on the bottom right of the page, click on the Current Conditions XML. Thats your link! Good luck! Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
53.1
```
5

lynx -dump http://api.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXCurrentObXML.asp?ID=KCALOSAN32 | grep GMT | awk '{print $3}'

editorreilly · 2010-02-05 19:17:18 8
Getting involved!!

I absolutely love this website, and appreciate every contribution. This is the first place I go when I'm stuck, you all have some great ideas. But contributions seem to be slipping a little. If all of us could contribute more code from time to time, this site would be absolutely incredible. Since I'm a relative newcomer to commandline-fu, I don't have the knowledge to contribute much, but I will do what I can.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-15

/bin/bash echo -n "Let's POST MORE, PLEASE!"

editorreilly · 2010-02-05 18:52:45 3
Status of Snow Armageddon in Washington DC Metro from the command line...

The Washington DC Metro area is not accustomed to getting large snow storms... http://snowpocalypsedc.com/
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

/usr/bin/links --source http://weather.noaa.gov/pub/data/forecasts/zone/md/mdz009.txt

SuperFly · 2010-02-05 17:44:45 3
Determine space taken by files of certain type

Just how much space are those zillions of database logs taking up ? How much will you gain on a compression rate of say 80% ? This little line gives you a good start for your calculations. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
9.1168e+09 # (9G, paste in calc for easy reading)
```
2

find . -name <pattern> -ls | awk 'BEGIN {i=0}; {i=i+$7}; END {print i}'

danam · 2010-02-05 14:47:27 5
show todays svn log

Shows the todays svn log. Perfect for alias usage I assume.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
2

svn log --revision {`date +%Y-%m-%d`}:HEAD

reaper · 2010-02-05 08:47:14 4
Speed up the keyboard repeat rate in X server
This is sample output - yours may be different.
2

xset r rate 250 120

cbrinker · 2010-02-04 23:19:35 6
Equivalent to ifconfig -a in HPUX
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

netstat -in

mobidyc · 2010-02-04 15:24:58 3
Mirror every lvol in vg00 in hp-ux 11.31
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1

find /dev/vg00 -type b |while read L; do lvextend -m 1 $L /dev/disk/<disk> ; done

mobidyc · 2010-02-04 15:18:26 3
A function to find the newest file in a directory
This is sample output - yours may be different.
2

find /path/to/dir -type f -printf "%T@|%p\n" 2>/dev/null | sort -n | tail -n 1| awk -F\| '{print $2}'

glennie · 2010-02-04 15:13:27 4
A function to find the newest file in a directory
This is sample output - yours may be different.
3

newest () { find ${1:-\.} -type f |xargs ls -lrt ; }

mobidyc · 2010-02-04 14:52:17 8
Configuring proxy client on terminal without leaving password on screen or in bash_history

Prompts the user for username and password, that are then exported to http_proxy for use by wget, yum etc Default user, webproxy and port are used. Using this script prevent the cleartext user and pass being in your bash_history and on-screen Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
[bob@localhost ~]$ set-proxy
username[fred]: bob
password:
[bob@localhost ~]$ wget google.co.uk
--13:05:20--  http://google.co.uk/
           => `index.html'
Resolving webproxy... 192.168.1.3
Connecting to webproxy|192.168.1.3|:1234... connected.
Proxy request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: unspecified [text/html]
13:05:20 (50.33 KB/s) - `index.html' saved [7381]
```
1

set-proxy () { P=webproxy:1234; DU="fred"; read -p "username[$DU]:" USER; printf "%b"; UN=${USER:-$DU}; read -s -p "password:" PASS; printf "%b" "\n"; export http_proxy="http://${UN}:${PASS}@$P/"; export ftp_proxy="http://${UN}:${PASS}@$P/"; }

shadycraig · 2010-02-04 13:12:59 5
A function to find the newest file in a directory

Works recusivley in the specified dir or '.' if none given. Repeatedly calls 'find' to find a newer file, when no newer files exist you have the newest. In this case 'newest' means most recently modified. To find the most recently created change -newer to -cnewer. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
[user@localhost ~]$ newest /var/www/html/
/var/www/html/manual/createCustomColumn.png
[user@localhost ~]$
```
1

newest () { DIR=${1:-'.'}; CANDIDATE=`find $DIR -type f|head -n1`; while [[ ! -z $CANDIDATE ]]; do BEST=$CANDIDATE; CANDIDATE=`find $DIR -newer "$BEST" -type f|head -n1`; done; echo "$BEST"; }

shadycraig · 2010-02-04 12:40:44 5
Dump sqlite database to plain text format

If you want edit your sqlite database in any uft8 supported editor, you can dump whole sqlite database to plain text.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
5

echo '.dump' | sqlite3 your_sqlite.db > your_sqlite_text.txt

alamati · 2010-02-04 07:58:41 5
your terminal sings

you know the song... sing along Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
one bottle of beer on the wall, cold bottle of beer...!
```
21

echo {1..199}" bottles of beer on the wall, cold bottle of beer, take one down, pass it around, one less bottle of beer on the wall,, " | espeak -v english -s 140

op4 · 2010-02-04 04:38:52 57
set a reminder for 5 days in the future

setup for reminder in 5 days, added the date in the future. To run a job at 4pm three days from now, you would do at 4pm + 3 days, to run a job at 10:00am on July 31, you would do at 10am Jul 31 and to run a job at 1am tomorrow, you would do at 1am tomorrow. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
warning: commands will be executed using /bin/sh
job 20 at Mon Feb  8 23:00:00 2010
```
2

echo "DISPLAY=$DISPLAY xmessage setup suphp perms htscanner acct#101101 host2.domain.com" | at 23:00 Feb 8

op4 · 2010-02-04 04:26:24 4
nice disk usage, sorted by size, see description for full command

full command below, would not let me put full command in text box du -sk ./* | sort -nr | awk 'BEGIN{ pref[1]="K"; pref[2]="M"; pref[3]="G";} { total = total + $1; x = $1; y = 1; while( x > 1024 ) { x = (x + 1023)/1024; y++; } printf("%g%s\t%s\n",int(x*10)/10,pref[y],$2); } END { y = 1; while( total > 1024 ) { total = (total + 1023)/1024; y++; } printf("Total: %g%s\n",int(total*10)/10,pref[y]); }' Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
22.6M	./NVIDIA-Linux-x86-185.18.31-pkg1.run
152K	./ffmpeginstall.3.2.1
28K	./compiz-check
16K	./ffmpeginstall.3.2.1.tar.gz
8K	./Desktop
4K	./Videos
4K	./Templates
4K	./Public
4K	./Pictures
4K	./Music
4K	./Documents
4K	./cpanel_rebuildbindzones
```
4

du -sk ./* | sort -nr

op4 · 2010-02-04 04:08:05 9
‹ First < 401 402 403 404 405 > 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

Combine multiple images into a video using ffmpeg

The -start_number can be ignored if sequence starts with 0, otherwise use first number in sequence

Clean the /boot directory

On Fedora clean the boot directory; erase older kernel

Add thousand separator with sed, in a file or within pipe

Does not necessarily require a file to process, it can be used in a pipe as well: $ cat filename | sed -e :a -e 's/$.*[0-9]$$[0-9]\{3\}$/\1,\2/;ta' I don't remember where I copy/pasted this from, I wish I credited the original author

To create files with specific permission:

Find top 5 big files

zsh: list of files sorted by size, greater than 100mb, head the top 5. '**/*' is recursive, and the glob qualifiers provide '.' = regular file, 'L' size, which is followed by 'm' = 'megabyte', and finally '+100' = a value of 100

Find all the files more than 10MB, sort in descending order of size and record the output of filenames and size in a text file.

This command specifies the size in Kilobytes using 'k' in the -size +(N)k option. The plus sign says greater than. -exec [cmd] {} \; invokes ls -l command on each file and awk strips off the values of the 5th (size) and the 9th (filename) column from the ls -l output to display. Sort is done in reversed order (descending) numerically using sort -rn options. A cron job could be run to execute a script like this and alert the users if a dir has files exceeding certain size, and provide file details as well.

Set laptop display brightness

Run as root. Path may vary depending on laptop model and video card (this was tested on an Acer laptop with ATI HD3200 video). $ cat /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness to discover the possible values for your display.

convert a line to a space

Add SVN keywords property to all PHP and Javascript files

View a man page on a nice interface

A great way of viewing some man page while using gnome.

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