cat? dd? RTFM
This command lets you see and scroll through all of the strings that are stored in the RAM at any given time. Press space bar to scroll through to see more pages (or use the arrow keys etc).
Sometimes if you don't save that file that you were working on or want to get back something you closed it can be found floating around in here!
The awk command only shows lines that are longer than 20 characters (to avoid seeing lots of junk that probably isn't "human readable").
If you want to dump the whole thing to a file replace the final '| less' with '> memorydump'. This is great for searching through many times (and with the added bonus that it doesn't overwrite any memory...).
Here's a neat example to show up conversations that were had in pidgin (will probably work after it has been closed)...
sudo cat /proc/kcore | strings | grep '([0-9]\{2\}:[0-9]\{2\}:[0-9]\{2\})'
(depending on sudo settings it might be best to run
sudo su
first to get to a # prompt)
This is for Debian, simply change the path if your Flash plugin is installed elsewhere. Show Sample Output
another possibility
emulates bash4's "echo {03..20}" Uses bash3 builtin function printf Show Sample Output
using awk missed the last char thanks @Josay Show Sample Output
Bash 4 will let you do {00..19} to get leading zeros, but Bash 3 doesn't have that feature. This technique gets you partway there (the sequences need be such that the last digit ranges from zero to nine - you can't use this for something like Bash 4's {03..27}, for example). When this limitation is not a problem, you can avoid some complicated string manipulation for concatenating leading zeros.
You can add more digits like this: {0..1}{0..9}{0..9} (ranges from 0 to 99 with up to two leading zeros). To pad with additional zeros:
for i in 000{0..1}{0..9}; do echo $i; done
or
for i in {0..1}{0..9}; do echo "000$i"; done
This is useful for creating values to sort or for creating filenames with a fixed format. Note that this will also work:
touch {0..1}{0..9}
Show Sample Output
Use this like the cat command with the additional feature to strip out unprintable characters from the input, newlines will stay. Show Sample Output
Find and replace specific characters in a single line in multiple files with sed. Show Sample Output
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.
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
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: