All commands (14,187)

  • it does provide much more information , the owner , group , the size in byte , and the last modified time a file or directory was ls -al : list all in long format Show Sample Output


    -11
    ls -al
    eastwind · 2009-11-12 12:27:32 6
  • this is a reference to Antoine de St. Exupery's "The Little Prince" Show Sample Output


    6
    aptitude moo
    eastwind · 2009-11-12 12:24:01 7
  • Watch a TiVo file on your computer.


    0
    curl -s -c /tmp/cookie -k -u tivo:$MAK --digest http://$tivo/download/$filename | tivodecode -m $MAK -- - | mplayer - -cache-min 50 -cache 65536
    matthewbauer · 2009-11-11 23:32:23 3

  • 9
    setterm -powersave off -blank 0
    unixmonkey6999 · 2009-11-11 22:39:50 4
  • trying to copy all your dotfiles from one location to another, this may help Show Sample Output


    -2
    ls -a | egrep "^\.\w"
    kulor · 2009-11-11 18:19:56 12
  • cd to the folder containing the wav files and convert them all to ogg format. in my sample output i use the -a and -l flags to set the author and album title. to get the oggenc program in ubuntu linux run: sudo apt-get install oggenc Show Sample Output


    2
    oggenc *.wav
    nickleus · 2009-11-11 14:26:01 6
  • cd to the folder containing the wav files, then convert them all to flac. yeah baby! in ubuntu, to get the flac program just: sudo apt-get install flac flac file input formats are wav, aiff, raw, flac, oga and ogg Show Sample Output


    3
    flac --best *.wav
    nickleus · 2009-11-11 14:17:24 9

  • -1
    for i in `cat /etc/passwd | awk -F : '{ print $1 }';`; do passwd -e $i; done
    irraz · 2009-11-11 13:01:22 3
  • Create a tar file in multiple parts if it's to large for a single disk, your filesystem, etc. Rejoin later with `cat .tar.*|tar xf -` Show Sample Output


    17
    tar cf - <dir>|split -b<max_size>M - <name>.tar.
    dinomite · 2009-11-11 01:53:33 5
  • The magic is performed by the parameter -t Show Sample Output


    -2
    for F in $(find ./ -name "*.tgz") ; do tar -tvzf $F ; done
    alchandia · 2009-11-11 00:50:52 3
  • 355 # from zsh-users 356 edit_command_line () { 357 # edit current line in $EDITOR 358 local tmpfile=${TMPPREFIX:-/tmp/zsh}ecl$$ 359 360 print -R - "$PREBUFFER$BUFFER" >$tmpfile 361 exec 362 ${VISUAL:-${EDITOR:-vi}} $tmpfile 363 zle kill-buffer 364 BUFFER=${"$( 365 CURSOR=$#BUFFER 366 367 command rm -f $tmpfile 368 zle redisplay 369 } 370 zle -N edit_command_line


    -2
    zsh$ M-v
    bucciarati · 2009-11-10 23:02:56 11

  • -3
    dd if=/dev/<device location> | gzip -c /<path to backup location>/<disk image name>.img.gz
    awjrichards · 2009-11-10 22:57:51 9
  • The pstack command prints a stack trace of running processes without needing to attach a debugger, but what about core files? The answer, of course, is to use this command. Usage: gdbbt program corefile


    3
    alias gdbbt="gdb -q -n -ex bt -batch"
    TeacherTiger · 2009-11-10 22:56:59 658
  • I don't know if you've used sqsh before. But it has a handy feature that allows you to switch into vim to complete editing of whatever complicated SQL statement you are trying to run. But I got to thinking -- why doesn't bash have that? Well, it does. It's called '|'! Jk. Seriously, I'm pretty sure this flow of commands will revolutionize how I administer files. And b/c everything is a file on *nx based distros, well, it's handy. First, if your ls is aliased to ls --color=auto, then create another alias in your .bashrc: alias lsp='ls --color=none' Now, let's say you want to rename all files that begin with the prefix 'ras' to files that begin with a 'raster' prefix. You could do it with some bash substitution. But who remembers that? I remember vim macros because I can remember to press 'qa' and how to move around in vim. Plus, it's more incremental. You can check things along the way. That is the secret to development and probably the universe. So type something like: lsp | grep ras Are those all the files you need to move? If not, modify and re-grep. If so, pipe it to vim. lsp | grep ras | vim - Now run your vim macros to modify the first line. Assuming you use 'w' and 'b' to move around, etc., it should work for all lines. Hold down '@@', etc., until your list of files has been modified from ras_a.h ras_a.cpp ras_b.h ras_b.cpp to: mv ras_a.h raster_a.h mv ras_a.cpp raster_a.cpp mv ras_b.h raster_b.h mv ras_b.h raster_b.cpp then run :%!bash then run :q! then be like, whaaaaa? as you realize your workflow got a little more continuous. maybe. YMMV.


    -3
    vim -
    tmsh · 2009-11-10 22:25:36 12
  • This script creates date based backups of the files. It copies the files to the same place the original ones are but with an additional extension that is the timestamp of the copy on the following format: YearMonthDay-HourMinuteSecond Show Sample Output


    6
    backup() { for i in "$@"; do cp -va $i $i.$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M%S); done }
    polaco · 2009-11-10 20:59:45 6
  • This script will list all the files in the tarballs present on any folder or subfolder of the provided path. The while loop is for echoing the file name of the tarball before listing the files, so the tarball can be identified


    -2
    find <path> -name "*.tgz" -or -name "*.tar.gz" | while read file; do echo "$file: "; tar -tzf $file; done
    polaco · 2009-11-10 20:39:04 36
  • This command will copy a folder tree (keeping the parent folders) through ssh. It will: - compress the data - stream the compressed data through ssh - decompress the data on the local folder This command will take no additional space on the host machine (no need to create compressed tar files, transfer it and then delete it on the host). There is some situations (like mirroring a remote machine) where you simply cant wait for a huge time taking scp command or cant compress the data to a tarball on the host because of file system space limitation, so this command can do the job quite well. This command performs very well mainly when a lot of data is involved in the process. If you copying a low amount of data, use scp instead (easier to type) Show Sample Output


    12
    ssh <host> 'tar -cz /<folder>/<subfolder>' | tar -xvz
    polaco · 2009-11-10 20:06:47 8

  • 0
    egrep -v "^[[:blank:]]*($|#|//|/\*| \*|\*/)" somefile
    sdadh01 · 2009-11-10 18:49:19 5
  • Find files recursively that were updated in the last hour ignoring SVN files and folders. Incase you do a full svn up on accident.


    2
    find . -mmin -60 -not -path "*svn*" -print|more
    bloodykis · 2009-11-10 18:34:53 7
  • Strips comments from at least bash and php scripts. Normal # and // as well as php block comments removes all of the: empty/blank lines lines beginning with # lines beginning with // lines beginning with /* lines beginning with a space and then * lines beginning with */ It also deletes the lines if there's whitespace before any of the above. Add an alias to use in .bashrc like this: alias stripcomments="sed -e '/^[[:blank:]]*#/d; s/[[:blank:]][[:blank:]]*#.*//' -e '/^$/d' -e '/^\/\/.*/d' -e '/^\/\*/d;/^ \* /d;/^ \*\//d'"


    -3
    sed -e '/^[[:blank:]]*#/d; s/[[:blank:]][[:blank:]]*#.*//' -e '/^$/d' -e '/^\/\/.*/d' -e '/^\/\*/d;/^ \* /d;/^ \*\//d' /a/file/with/comments
    unixmonkey6951 · 2009-11-10 17:47:22 10
  • The legend in the first column: i = installed p = installable Show Sample Output


    -6
    aptitude search NAME
    CafeNinja · 2009-11-10 11:23:18 5
  • The command as given would create the file "/result_path/result.tar.gz" with the contents of the target folder including permissions and sub- folder structure. Show Sample Output


    0
    tar pzcvf /result_path/result.tar.gz /target_path/target_folder
    CafeNinja · 2009-11-10 11:17:00 5
  • will decode a mime message. usefull when you receive some email and file attachment that cant be read.


    3
    munpack file.txt
    Diceroll · 2009-11-10 10:53:49 4
  • search ubuntu's remote package source repositories for a specific program to see which package contains it Show Sample Output


    7
    apt-file find bin/programname
    nickleus · 2009-11-10 10:21:45 6
  • require the pdftk package


    8
    pdftk 1.pdf 2.pdf 3.pdf cat output 123.pdf
    eastwind · 2009-11-10 10:07:37 4
  • ‹ First  < 428 429 430 431 432 >  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

View non-printing characters with cat
Useful to detect number of tabs in an empty line, DOS newline (carriage return + newline). A tool that can help you understand why your parsing is not working.

What is the use of this switch ?
e.g. $ manswitch grep -o This will take you to the relevant part of the man page, so you can see the description of the switch underneath.

Use AWS CLI and JQ to get a list of instances sorted by launch time
Use the AWS CLI tools to generate a list instances, then pipe them to JQ to show only their launch time and instance id. Finally use sort to bring them out in runtime order. Find all those instances you launched months ago and have forgotten about.

add a backup (or any other) suffix to a file
Very helpful when you've got complex filenames and needs to change just some small parts of it. Renaming a file called "i-made-a-small-typo-right-here" to "i-made-a-big-typo-right-here": $ mv -vi i-made-a-{small,big}-typo-right-here You could also copy multiple files, edit, remove, process, etc.

Swap the two last arguments of the current command line
Say you just typed a long command like this: $ rsync -navupogz --delete /long/path/to/dir_a /very/long/path/to/dir_b but you really want to sync dir_b to dir_a. Instead of rewriting all the command line, just type followed by , and your command line will read $ rsync -navupogz --delete /very/long/path/to/dir_b /long/path/to/dir_a

sorting file contents into individual files with awk
This command will sort the contents of FILENAME by redirecting the output to individual .txt files in which 3rd column will be used for sorting. If FILENAME contents are as follows: foo foo A foo bar bar B bar lorem ipsum A lorem Then two files called A.txt and B.txt will be created and their contents will be: A.txt foo foo A foo lorem ipsum A lorem and B.txt will be bar bar B bar

Recursively remove all subversion folders

Find the real procesor speed when you use CPU scaling [cpuspeed]
We don't use CPU scaling, but just in case you do, there is something interesting to note. If you look at the /proc/cpuinfo, the speed listed is current running speed of the processors and not the real speed of the chip.

Remote control for Rhythmbox on an Ubuntu Media PC
Note: you'll want to set up pub-key ssh auth. Gives you a quick means of changing volume/tracks/etc for rhythmbox on a remote machine. E.g.: rc --next # Play next track rc --print-playing # Grab the name rc --volume-down rc --help

Monitor dynamic changes in the dmesg log.
Other logs can be monitored similarly, e.g. $ watch "tail -15 /var/log/daemon.log"


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: