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Cryptographically secure 32-bit RNG in strict ZSH
ZSH ships a couple random number generators via the $RANDOM environment variable and rand48() via zsh/mathfunc, but neither are cryptographically secure. This code produces a 32-bit random number suitable for cryptography. It's only dependency is /dev/urandom and it does not rely on any shell commands or 3rd party utilities. It assumes ZSH was compiled with 64-bit integer support.

Benchmark SQL Query
Benchmark a SQL query against MySQL Server. The example runs the query 10 times, and you get the average runtime in the output. To ensure that the query does not get cached, use `RESET QUERY CACHE;` on top in the query file.

Create incremental backups of individual folders using find and tar-gzip
Problem: I wanted to backup user data individually, using and incremental method. In this example, all user data is located in "/mnt/storage/profiles", and about 25 folders inside, each with a username ( /mnt/storage/profiles/mike; /mnt/storage/profiles/lucy ...) I need each individual folder backed up, not the whole "/mnt/storage/profiles". So, using find while excluding directories depth and creating two variables (tarfile=username & desdir=destination), tar will create a .tgz file for each folder, resulting in a "mike_2013-12-05.tgz" and "lucy_2013-12-05.tgz".

Averaging columns of numbers
This example calculates the averages of column one and column two of "file.dat". It can be easily modified if other columns are to be averaged.

Function to check whether a regular file ends with a newline
tail -c 1 "$1" returns the last byte in the file. Command substitution deletes any trailing newlines, so if the file ended in a newline $(tail -c 1 "$1") is now empty, and the -z test succeeds. However, $a will also be empty for an empty file, so we add -s "$1" to check that the file has a size greater than zero. Finally, -f "$1" checks that the file is a regular file -- not a directory or a socket, etc.

Find usb device in realtime
Using this command you can track a moment when usb device was attached.

Recursively Find Images, Convert to JPEGS and Delete
Simple command to convert a large number of images into jpeg-format. Will delete originals after conversion.

List all bash shortcuts
This command shows the various shortcuts that can be use in bash, including Ctrl+L, Ctrl+R, etc... You can translate "\C-y" to Ctrl+y, for example.

Check hashes of files installed by Debian packages, reporting only errors.


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