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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.

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Find broken symlinks and delete them
This command is adapted from http://otomaton.wordpress.com/2012/12/26/find-broken-symbolic-links/ Solutions with $ find -L don't work when the link is a loop, an error message is printed.

Convert CSV to JSON
Replace 'csv_file.csv' with your filename.

Which processes are listening on a specific port (e.g. port 80)
swap out "80" for your port of interest. Can use port number or named ports e.g. "http"

edit hex mode in vim
return to normal mode from hex mode :%!xxd -r

Backup VPS disk to another host

concatenate avi files
concatenates avi files

Set a user password without passwd
Slightly shorter. It doesn't create a subprocess either.

Install pip with Proxy
Installs pip packages defining a proxy

Find last reboot time
Specific to OSX.

Eavesdrop on your system
This command takes a snapshot of the open files for a PID 1234 then waits 10 seconds and takes another snapshot of the same PID, it then displays the difference between each snapshot to give you an insight into what the application is doing.


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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.

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