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split a file by a specific number of lines
Splits the file "my_file" every 500 lines. Will create files called xx01 xx02 and so on. You can change the prefix by using the -f option. Comes in handy for splitting logfiles for example. I am using it for feeding a logfile parser with smaller files instead of one big file (due to performance reasons)

Recursive grep of all c++ source under the current directory
I like this better than some of the alternatives using -exec, because if I want to change the string, it's right there at the end of the command line. That means less editing effort and more time to drink coffee.

Calculate days on which Friday the 13th occurs
I removed the dependency of the English language

Show battery infomations for OS X 10.5.x

Enter parameter if empty (script becomes interactive when parameters are missing)
Can be used for command line parameters too. If you have a more complicated way of entering values (validation, GUI, ...), then write a function i.e. EnterValue() that echoes the value and then you can write: $ param=${param:-$(EnterValue)}

get xclip to own the clipboard contents
"Copying" things to the X clipboard doesn't normally create a copy. Rather the data to be 'copied' is referenced. This means that if the application that you 'copied' stuff from is closed, that data is lost. If the application that you 'copied' from is suspended with CTRL-Z, there could be some issues if you try to paste it into something. This command will create a copy of referenced data and have xclip be the provider of it, so you can then go ahead and close the app that contains the original information. Caveat: I'm not sure if this is binary-safe (though i would expect it to be), and don't know what would happen if you used it to clip a 20 meg gimp image. This technique becomes more convenient if you set it up as an action in a clipboard manager (eg klipper, parcellite). Some of these applets can take automatic action based on a variety of parameters, so you could probably just get it to always own the clipped data whenever data is clipped.

Print one . instead of each line
this version only uses shell builtins

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.

Lists unambigously names of all xml elements used in files in current directory
This set of commands was very convenient for me when I was preparing some xml files for typesetting a book. I wanted to check what styles I had to prepare but coudn't remember all tags that I used. This one saved me from error-prone browsing of all my files. It should be also useful if one tries to process xml files with xsl, when using own xml application.

Find Files That Exceed a Specified Size Limit


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