All commands sorted by votes

All commands (14,187)

sorted by

Merge ( directories [looking for improvement]

Using a GUI file managers you can merge directories (cut and paste). This command roughly does the same (it doesn't ask for confirmation (no problem for me) and it doesn't clean up the empty SRC directories (no problem, trivial). probably does the same: cp -l SRC TARGET; rm -rf SRC
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

(cd SRC; find . -type d -exec mkdir TARGET/{} ";"; find . -type f -exec mv {} TARGET/{} ";")

karel1980 · 2009-08-17 12:35:48 11
60 second on screen timer for bash scripts
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

i=60;while [ $i -gt 0 ];do if [ $i -gt 9 ];then printf "\b\b$i";else printf "\b\b $i";fi;sleep 1;i=`expr $i - 1`;done

barnesmjsa · 2011-09-08 18:14:48 3
cat without comments

cat without comments
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

cat /etc/squid/squid.conf | grep -v '^#' | sed '/^$/d'

Bafus · 2012-01-03 08:18:07 14
revert the unstaged modifications in a git working directory
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

git diff | git apply --reverse

samer · 2012-05-15 22:36:33 3
Change wallpaper random

Change your Desktop background/wallpaper with feh lightweight command. fill background directory with appropriate content.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

feh --bg-scale "`ls -d $HOME/backgrounds/* |sort -R |tail -1`"

bertatum · 2013-03-16 16:05:48 5
Force a kernel panic

Well, this is quite useful for testing if your hardware watchdog is working properly.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

echo c > /proc/sysrq-trigger

fangfufu · 2013-05-07 19:41:40 6
Split an image in half for use on dual screens (mostly for use under KDE which treats each screen separately)

Output should be two JPG files named like "output-1.jpg" and "output-2.jpg". The convert command is part of ImageMagick so you'll need that and dependent packages installed to use it.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

convert yourdoublewideimage.jpg -crop 50%x100% +repage output.jpg

pagesix1536 · 2014-01-15 15:34:41 8
Create a git commit with no message

This is especially useful for adding changes to a temporary repo, such as a Gist. Avoid using this when collaborating with others.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

git commit --allow-empty-message --message ""

nicolasmccurdy · 2014-07-16 02:06:39 15
Daemonize Node.js apps and ease your system administration workflow

I'm the author of PM2 and wrote this tool, and I'm please to share it here. Github project link: https://github.com/Unitech/pm2 Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
Success true.
```
0

pm2 start app.js

strzel_a · 2014-11-07 23:15:12 10
Live stream a remote video device over ssh using ffmpeg

Change bitrate with option '-b'
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

ssh user@host ffmpeg -b 200 -an -f video4linux2 \ -s 960x720 -r 10 -i /dev/video0 -b 200 -f ogg - \ | mplayer - -idle -demuxer ogg

dkaliberda · 2015-02-27 19:05:26 8
check open ports without netstat or lsof

Order and uniq
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

declare -a array=($(tail -n +2 /proc/net/tcp | cut -d":" -f"3"|cut -d" " -f"1")) && for port in ${array[@]}; do echo $((0x$port)); done | sort | uniq

lucasjr76 · 2016-08-19 03:20:59 18
create video from image series
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

ffmpeg -f image2 -r 15 -i pic.%04d.png -r 15 -b:v 8M vid15.avi

ceddi · 2016-10-17 19:50:16 17
Download a zipped file and extract it in one line

The example uses hashicorps packer as the sample file, but any .zip file which only contains a single file will work. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
packer
```
0

curl -Ss https://releases.hashicorp.com/packer/1.0.0/packer_1.0.0_linux_amd64.zip | zcat > packer

hvindin · 2017-04-25 22:03:11 21
Print all git repos from a user

Python is installed on many boxes (in case you could not afford installing jq).
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

curl -s "https://api.github.com/users/<username>/repos?per_page=1000" | python <(echo "import json,sys;v=json.load(sys.stdin);for i in v:; print(i['git_url']);" | tr ';' '\n')

grault · 2019-12-07 10:49:58 106
One liner gdb attach to Acrobat
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

(acroread &);sleep 2;gdb /opt/Adobe/Reader8/Reader/intellinux/bin/acroread `pidof ld-linux.so.2`

rhythmx · 2009-04-29 16:23:48 11
Calculator on the go

Handy use of bc in the command line. No need to get 'into' the bc to perform calculations Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
# echo 2+3 |bc
5
```
0

echo 2+3 |bc

Kaio · 2009-07-04 22:03:41 12
List your largest installed packages (on Debian/Ubuntu)

List packages and their disk usage in decreasing order. This uses the "Installed-Size" from the package metadata. It may differ from the actual used space, because e.g. data files (think of databases) or log files may take additional space. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
342348  netbeans-ide
231728  kdelibs4-doc
121332  comixcursors
108796  openoffice.org-core
[...]
```
0

perl -ne '$pkg=$1 if m/^Package: (.*)/; print "$1\t$pkg\n" if m/^Installed-Size: (.*)/;' < /var/lib/dpkg/status | sort -rn | less

hfs · 2009-10-19 12:55:59 7
shows the full path of shell commands
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

type <command>

prayer · 2010-02-15 21:47:18 5
Find PHP files
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

find . -name "*.php" -exec grep -i -H "search pharse" {} \;

wr8cr8 · 2010-07-22 11:54:45 17
Handling oracle alter log file
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

awk '{if ($1~/Sun|Mon|Tue|Wed|Thu|Fri|Sat/) {DATE=$2" "$3" "$4" "$5 } else {print DATE"|"$0}}' alterorcl.log

hxre · 2010-11-26 01:40:58 4
Displays All TCP and UDP Connections
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

sudo netstat|head -n2|tail -n1 && sudo netstat -a|grep udp && echo && sudo netstat|head -n2|tail -n1 && sudo netstat -a|grep tcp

brando56894 · 2011-09-08 18:54:36 3
Remove the first and the latest caracter of a string

Just an other solution :)
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

echo foobar | sed -r 's/(^.|.$)//g'

ebraminio · 2011-11-19 16:19:07 3
Fast way to get the product of every number in a file
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

(sed 's/^/x*=/' file ; echo x) | bc

fallen3angel · 2012-01-03 13:45:25 3
Display count of log entries via the previous minute for graphing purposes. Example given is for DHCPREQUESTS on an ISC dhcp service log.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

DATE=`date +"%H:%M" --date '-1 min'`; egrep "\ $DATE\:..\ " /var/log/dhcpd.log |awk '/DHCPREQUEST/ {split($3,t,":"); printf("%02d:%02d\n",t[1],t[2]);}' |uniq -c;

jobewan · 2013-03-17 02:23:37 5
Hex Dump
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

hexdump -C file

qistoph · 2013-05-07 20:40:02 13
‹ First < 462 463 464 465 466 > Last ›

What's this?

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.

Share Your Commands

Check These Out

Recursively list all of the files in a directory, group them by extension and calculate the average of the file sizes in each group

Here's an annotated version of the command, using full-names instead of aliases. It is exactly equivalent to the short-hand version. # Recursively list all the files in the current directory. Get-ChildItem -Recurse | # Filter out the sub-directories themselves. Where-Object { return -not $_.PsIsContainer; } | # Group the resulting files by their extensions. Group-Object Extension | # Pluck the Name and Count properties of each group and define # a custom expression that calculates the average of the sizes # of the files in that group. # The back-tick is a line-continuation character. Select-Object ` Name, Count, @{ Name = 'Average'; Expression = { # Average the Length (sizes) of the files in the current group. return ($_.Group | Measure-Object -Average Length).Average; } } | # Format the results in a tabular view, automatically adjusted to # widths of the values in the columns. Format-Table -AutoSize ` @{ # Rename the Name property to something more sensible. Name = 'Extension'; Expression = { return $_.Name; } }, Count, @{ # Format the Average property to display KB instead of bytes # and use a formatting string to show it rounded to two decimals. Name = 'Average Size (KB)'; # The "1KB" is a built-in constant which is equal to 1024. Expression = { return $_.Average / 1KB }; FormatString = '{0:N2}' }

Backup a file with a date-time stamp

Appends the input file with the date format YYYY-MM-DD.bak. Also runs silently if you remove the -v on the cp at the end of the function.

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"

Go to directory or creat it and go to

For use in scripts this command is very usefull

Print environment information.

Print environment (system) information using Perl.

Show the UUID of a filesystem or partition

Show the UUID-based alternate device names of ZEVO-related partitions on Darwin/OS X. Adapted from the lines by dbrady at http://zevo.getgreenbytes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=700#p700 and following the disk device naming scheme at http://zevo.getgreenbytes.com/wiki/pmwiki.php?n=Site.DiskDeviceNames

rsync directory tree including only files that match a certain find result.

'-mtime -10' syncs only files newer 10 days (-mtime is just one example, use whatever find expressions you need) printf %P: File's name with the name of the command line argument under which it was found removed. this way, you can use any src directory, no need to cd into your src directory first. using \\0 in printf and a corresponding --from0 in rsync ensures that even filenames with newline characters work (thanks syssyphus for #3808). both, #1481 and #3808 just work if you either copy the current directory (.) , or the filesystem root (/), otherwise the output from find and the source dir from rsync just don't match. #7685 works with an arbitrary source directory.

Show the command line of a process that use a specific port (ubuntu)

Extract all GPS positions from a AVCHD video.

Create a mirror of a local folder, on a remote server

Create a exact mirror of the local folder "/root/files", on remote server 'remote_server' using SSH command (listening on port 22) (all files & folders on destination server/folder will be deleted)

Stay in the loop…

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.

» http://twitter.com/commandlinefu
» http://twitter.com/commandlinefu3
» http://twitter.com/commandlinefu10

Subscribe to the feeds.

Use your favourite RSS aggregator to stay in touch with the latest commands. There are feeds mirroring the 3 Twitter streams as well as for virtually every other subset (users, tags, functions,…):

Subscribe to the feed for:

» all commands
» commands with 3 up-votes (commandlinefu3)
» commands with 10 up-votes (commandlinefu10)

All commands (14,187) the last day the last week the last month all time sorted by date votes

What's this?

Check These Out

Stay in the loop…

All commands (14,187)

sorted by