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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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reverse order of file

Given process ID print its environment variables
Same as previous but without fugly sed =x

swap stdout and stderr
Possible use, to filter something in stderr: (/usr/bin/$COMMAND $PARAM 3>&1 1>&2 2>&3 | grep -v $uninteresting_error ) 3>&1 1>&2 2>&3

Determine space taken by files of certain type
Just how much space are those zillions of database logs taking up ? How much will you gain on a compression rate of say 80% ? This little line gives you a good start for your calculations.

sync two folders except hidden files

Delete all empty lines from a file with vim
If you need to delete lines that may contain space characters (such as tabs or spaces) as well as empty ones, try: $:v/\S/d Just an alternative.

back up your commandlinefu contributed commands
Use `zless` to read the content of your *rss.gz file: $ zless commandlinefu-contribs-backup-2009-08-10-07.40.39.rss.gz

send a .loc file to a garmin gps over usb
gps data from geocaching.com is provided for free in .loc format.

continuously print string as if being entered from the keyboard
Cycles continuously through a string printing each character with a random delay less than 1 second. First parameter is min, 2nd is max. Example: 1 3 means sleep random .1 to .3. Experiment with different values. The 3rd parameter is the string. The sleep will help with battery life/power consumption. $ cycle 1 3 $(openssl rand 100 | xxd -p) Fans of "The Shining" might get a kick out of this: $ cycle 1 4 ' All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.'

share internet connection with only one network interface
the below command create a alias for share your internet connection with another. $ifconfig eth0:1 192.168.0.1/24 Its obviously necessary too activate the iptables post-routing and ip forwarding, as root: $modprobe iptable_nat $iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE $echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward Be sure that the alias 192.168.0.0/24 is not your active real ip range


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