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Interactively build regular expressions
txt2regex can be interactive or noninteractive and generates regular expressions for a variety of dialects based on user input. In interactive mode, the regex string builds as you select menu options. The sample output here is from noninteractive mode, try running it standalone and see for yourself. It's written in bash and is available as the 'txt2regex' package at least under debian/ubuntu.

tar the current directory wihtout the absolute path
tars the current directory (and its children) in an archive of the same name (plus ".tar" :)) in the parent directory without the absolute path, so that when the archive is extracted, only the current directory name is created for the path. Assumes bash/zsh.

shell function to make gnu info act like man.
For those who hate navigating info pages, a shell function which will dump the contents to stdout, then page it through less, thus acting like 'man'.

list block devices
Shows all block devices in a tree with descruptions of what they are.

Find the package that installed a command

list block devices
Shows all block devices in a tree with descruptions of what they are.

Get AWS temporary credentials ready to export based on a MFA virtual appliance
You might want to secure your AWS operations requiring to use a MFA token. But then to use API or tools, you need to pass credentials generated with a MFA token. This commands asks you for the MFA code and retrieves these credentials using AWS Cli. To print the exports, you can use: `awk '{ print "export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=\"" $1 "\"\n" "export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=\"" $2 "\"\n" "export AWS_SESSION_TOKEN=\"" $3 "\"" }'` You must adapt the command line to include: * $MFA_IDis ARN of the virtual MFA or serial number of the physical one * TTL for the credentials

Shows the torrent file name along with the trackers url
Replace * with any filename matching glob or an individual filename

bash screensaver (scrolling ascii art with customizable message)
Displays a scrolling banner which loops until you hit Ctrl-C to terminate it. Make sure you finish your banner message with a space so it will loop nicely.

ls -qahlSr # list all files in size order - largest last
I find it useful, when cleaning up deleting unwanted files to make more space, to list in size order so I can delete the largest first. Note that using "q" shows files with non-printing characters in name. In this sample output (above), I found two copies of the same iso file both of which are immediate "delete candidates" for me.


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