Commands using cat

If you are downloading a big file (or even a small one) and the connection breaks or times out, use this command in order to RESUME the download where it failed, instead of having to start downloading from the beginning. This is a real win for downloading debian ISO images over a buggy DSL modem.

Take the partially downloaded file and cat it into the STDIN of curl, as shown. Then use the "-C -" option followed by the URL of the file you were originally downloading.

This is an extract from a larger script which formats the video for DVD. The videos I use have no audio track so I need to add one. Tweak as you like...

use find to grep all .c files from the target directory, cat them into one stream, then piped to wc to count the lines

The command `cat file >> file` failes with the following error message:

cat: file: input file is output file

`tee` is a nice workaround without using any temporary files.

If you use newsgroups then you'll have come across split files before. Joining together a whole batch of them can be a pain so this will do the whole folder in one.

A common mistake in Bash is to write command-line where there's command a reading a file and whose result is redirected to that file.

It can be easily avoided because of :

1) warnings "-bash: file.txt: cannot overwrite existing file"

2) options (often "-i") that let the command directly modify the file

but I like to have that small function that does the trick by waiting for the first command to end before trying to write into the file.

Lots of things could probably done in a better way, if you know one...

This just combines multiple mp3's into one mp3 file. Basically it is a easy join for mp3's

Output manpage as plaintext using cat as pager: man -P cat commandname

And redirect its stdout into a file: man -P cat commandname > textfile.txt

Example: man -P cat ls > man_ls.txt

Busiest seconds:

Just a handy way to get all the unique links from inside all the html files inside a directory. Can be handy on scripts etc.

awk can clear the screen while displaying output. This is a handy way of seeing how many lines a tail -f has hit or see how many files find has found. On solaris, you may have to use 'nawk' and your machine needs 'tput'

Save the script as: sort_file

Usage: sort_file < sort_me.csv > out_file.csv

This script was originally posted by Admiral Beotch in LinuxQuestions.org on the Linux-Software forum.

I modified this script to make it more portable.

I spent a bunch of time yesterday looking for the xsel package in Cygwin- turns out you can use the /dev/clipboard device to do the same thing.

If you just want to write or append some text to a file without having to run a text editor, run this command. After running the command, start typing away. To exit, type . on a line by itself.

Replacing the >> with a single > will let you overwrite your file.

avoid mouse abuse and the constant struggle of balancing scroll velocity ... not to mention that burning sensation in your upper right shoulder ....

Found in comments section works on most Linux flavors.

Logtool is a nice tool that can export log file to various format, but its strength lies in the capacity of colorize logs. This command take a log as input and colorize it, then export it to an html file for a more confortable view. Logtool is part of logtool package.Tested on Debian.

Useful if you have to put together multiple files into one and they are scattered across subdirectories. For example: You need to combine all .sql files into one .sql file that would be sent to DBAs as a batch script.

You do get a warning if you create a file by the same extension as the ones your searching for.

find . -type f -name *.sql -exec cat {} > BatchFile.txt \;

Pipe whatever you want to this function, it will, if everything goes well, be redirected to a channel or a user on an IRC server.

Please note that :

- I am not responsible of flood excesses you might provoke.

- that function does not reply to PINGs from the server. That's the reason why I first write in a temporary file. Indeed, I don't want to wait for inputs while being connected to the server. However, according to the configuration of the server and the length of your file, you may timeout before finishing.

- Concerning the server, the variable content must be on the form "irc.server.org 6667" (or any other port). If you want to make some tests, you can also create a fake IRC server on "localhost 55555" by using

- Concerning the target, you can choose a channel (beginning with a '#' like "#chan") or a user (like "user")

- The other variables have obvious names.

more information: man sdiff