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bash shortcut: !$ !^ !* !:3 !:h and !:t
When expanding, bash output the command, so don't be affraid if you type the command. Here is the details: First examples: $echo foo bar foobar barfoo First argument: $echo !$ echo barfoo barfoo (Note that typing echo foo bar foobar barfoo && echo !$, bash substitute !$ with $:1) Last argument: $echo foo bar foobar barfoo && echo !^ echo foo bar foobar barfoo && echo barfoo foo bar foobar barfoo barfoo All the arguments: $echo !* echo foo bar foobar barfoo foo bar foobar barfoo The third argument: $echo foo bar foobar barfoo && echo !:3 echo foo bar foobar barfoo && echo foobar foo bar foobar barfoo foobar You may want to add {} for large numbers: echo !:{11} for example Now with path: $echo /usr/bin/foobar /usr/bin/foobar For the head: $echo !$:h echo /usr/bin /usr/bin And the tail: $echo !$:t echo foobar foobar You also may want to try !:h and !:t or !!3-4 for the third and the fourth (so !!:* == !!:1-$)

Start an X app remotely
Launch a gui app remotely. In this example smplayer is installed on the remote machine, and movie.avi is in the remote user's home dir. Note that stdout/stderr is still local, so you'll have feedback locally, add '&>/dev/null' to suppress. This is surprisingly not well known (compared to running an X app locally via ssh -X). (NB. if your distro requires ~/.Xauthority file present, then try -fX if you have problems) Resubmitted (and trimmed, thanks sitaram) due to ridiculous voting on previous submission. Fingers crossed, it gets a better rating this time.

To get you started!
Do it.

ssh autocomplete based on ~/.ssh/config
I use this in my bashrc to expand hosts defined in ~/.ssh/config: function _ssh_completion() { perl -ne 'print "$1 " if /^Host (.+)$/' ~/.ssh/config } complete -W "$(_ssh_completion)" ssh Here's a great article on how to setup your own ~/.ssh/config: http://blogs.perl.org/users/smylers/2011/08/ssh-productivity-tips.html

Zip a directory on Mac OS X and ignore .DS_Store (metadata) directory
If you want to generate a cross-platform compatible zip file and ignore the Finder's hidden metadata directory

Run a command for a given time
or "Execute a command with a timeout" Run a command in background, sleep 10 seconds, kill it. $! is the process id of the most recently executed background command. You can test it with: find /& sleep10; kill $!

Generate RSA private key and self-signed certificate
This will create, in the current directory, a file called 'pk.pem' containing an unencrypted 2048-bit RSA private key and a file called 'cert.pem' containing a certificate signed by 'pk.pem'. The private key file will have mode 600. !!ATTENTION!! ==> this command will overwrite both files if present.

about how using internal separate field and store file content on variable

Remove newlines from output
Pipe any output to "grep ." and blank lines will not be printed.

Parse a quoted .csv file
The $2, $3, $4 fields are arbitrary but note that the first field starts from $2 and the last field is $NF-1. This is due to the fact that the leading and trailing quotes are treated as field delimiters.


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