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check open ports without netstat or lsof

Url Encode
Returns URL Encoded string from input ($1).

list block devices
Shows all block devices in a tree with descruptions of what they are.

Install pip with Proxy
Installs pip packages defining a proxy

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. ☺)

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"

diff two unsorted files without creating temporary files
bash/ksh subshell redirection (as file descriptors) used as input to diff

"Pretty print" $PATH, separate path per line
from: http://www.unix.com/shell-programming-and-scripting/28047-split-print-path.html

Print all open regular files sorted by the number of file handles open to each.
List all open files of all processes. . $ find /proc/*/fd Look through the /proc file descriptors . $ -xtype f list only symlinks to file . $ -printf "%l\n" print the symlink target . $ grep -P '^/(?!dev|proc|sys)' ignore files from /dev /proc or /sys . $ sort | uniq -c | sort -n count the results . Many processes will create and immediately delete temporary files. These can the filtered out by adding: $ ... | grep -v " (deleted)$" | ...

Execute MySQL query send results from stdout to CSV
You can, of course, tell MySQL to output results to a file and dictate how to terminate lines, etc. But sometimes you don't have access to the file system MySQL is running on, complicating outputting your results to a CSV, necessitating either annoying hacks or this simple command :D


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