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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.

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random xkcd comic
i sorta stole this from http://www.shell-fu.org/lister.php?id=878#MTC_form but it didn't work, so here it is, fixed. --- updated to work with jpegs, and to use a fancy positive look behind assertion.

Disassemble some shell code
This one liner takes the shell code that you can grab off of the web and disassemble it into readable assembly so you can validate the code does what it says, before using it. The shell code in the above example is from http://www.shell-storm.org/shellcode/files/shellcode-623.php You can replace "-s intel" with "-s att" to get AT&T format disassembly.

Backup file, create dir and set perms in one shot
Prior to working on/modifying a file, use the 'install -m' command which can both copy files, create directories, and set their permissions at the same time. Useful when you are working in the public_html folder and need to keep the cp'd file hidden.

lists files and folders in a folder
lists files and folders in a folder with summary.

Leap year calculation

Reverse a file

Play all the music in a folder, on shuffle
Play files in shuffle mode with bash and mpg123. Why bother using big-as-hell stuff like mplayer? This will play all your music files contained in */* (in my case author/song.format) with bash and mplayer showing a nice output.

Copy a directory recursively without data/files

Use tcpdump to monitor all DNS queries and responses

Watch several log files in a single window
It works like a "tail -f" on several files. Use the number keys 0-9 to set a baseline in the numbered window. Pressing "b" let you scroll back in one of the windows.


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