Commands using file sorted by votes

Commands using file (166)

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Yet Another Rename (bash function)

Implementation of `rename` for systems on which I don't have access to it. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
> ls 
text1.txt
text2.txt
> rename txt new.txt *txt
> ls
text1.new.txt
text2.new.txt
```
2

rename(){ txtToReplace=${1} ; replacementTxt=${2} ; shift 2 ; files=${@} ; for file in $files ; do mv ${file} ${file/${txtToReplace}/${replacementTxt}} ; done ; }

thebillywayne · 2012-10-03 17:03:29 4
Massive change of file extension (bash)

Change the file extension in batch. Useful to create output file names with same input name but distinct extension by including logic inside the loop
This is sample output - yours may be different.
2

for file in *.txt; do mv "$file" "${file%.txt}.xml"; done

neomefistox · 2019-10-24 04:35:10 214
converts a directory full of source tarballs into a bzr repository so you can compare different versions easily
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1

bzr init .;for file in `ls *.bz2`; do bzr import $file; bzr ci -m $file; done

statik · 2009-02-16 04:19:03 60
read Windows ACLs from Linux

You can read, add, delete and modify Windows permissions from Linux using smbcacls from the smb-client package. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
[user@bigdaddy ~]# smbcacls //bigdaddy/Music enigma -U sambauser
Password:
REVISION:1
CONTROL:0x9004
OWNER:S-1-5-21-3153736633-1905262503-1117118772-1000
GROUP:Unix Group@users
ACL:S-1-5-21-3153736633-1905262503-1117118772-1000:ALLOWED/0x0/FULL
ACL:Unix Group@users:ALLOWED/0x0/FULL
ACL:Everyone:ALLOWED/0x0/READ
```
1

smbcacls //server/sharename file -U username

drossman · 2009-02-16 18:52:14 9
Show all mergeinfo for a svn subtree
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1

find . $ -type d -name .svn -prune $ -o -print | while read file ; do mergeinfo=`svn propget svn:mergeinfo $file` ; [ "$mergeinfo" != "" ] && echo -e "$file\n $mergeinfo\n" ; done

troelskn · 2009-04-04 23:26:03 5
GZip all files in a directory separately

It gzip each file in a directory separately
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1

for file in *.foo; do gzip "$file"; done

dfrios · 2009-10-15 01:27:05 3
Find all videos under current directory

Uses mime-type of files rather than relying on file extensions to find files of a certain type. This can obviously be extended to finding files of any other type as well.. like plain text files, audio, etc.. In reference to displaying the total hours of video (which was earlier posted in command line fu, but relied on the user having to supply all possible video file formats) we can now do better: find ./ -type f -print0 | xargs -0 file -iNf - | grep video | cut -d: -f1 | xargs -d'\n' /usr/share/doc/mplayer/examples/midentify | grep ID_LENGTH | awk -F "=" '{sum += $2} END {print sum/60/60; print "hours"}'
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1

find ./ -type f -print0 | xargs -0 file -iNf - | grep video | cut -d: -f1

jnash · 2009-11-19 06:05:36 6
phpdoc shortcut

A shortcut to generate documentation with phpdoc. Defaults to HTML; optionally to PDF if third argument is given. Stores documentation in cwd under ./docs/. I forget the syntax to the output, -o, option, so this is easier.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1

gophpdoc() { if [ $# -lt 2 ]; then echo $0 '< file > < title > [ pdf ]'; return; fi; if [ "$3" == 'pdf' ]; then ot=PDF:default:default; else ot=HTML:frames:earthli; fi; phpdoc -o $ot -f "$1" -t docs -ti "$2" }

meathive · 2010-06-09 01:15:04 8
Create a simple playlist sort by Genre using mp3info

Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
ls -al
total 40
drwxr-xr-x  2 alex alex  4096 2010-12-13 14:40 .
drwxr-xr-x 96 alex alex 16384 2010-12-13 14:15 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 alex alex  1426 2010-12-13 14:40 Blues.m3u
-rw-r--r--  1 alex alex  3668 2010-12-13 14:40 Other.m3u
-rw-r--r--  1 alex alex  4435 2010-12-13 14:40 Soundtrack.m3u
-rw-r--r--  1 alex alex  2375 2010-12-13 14:40 Uncategorized.m3u
```
1

for file in $(find ~/ -iname "*.mp3");do c=$(mp3info $file|grep Genre|cut -f 3 -d :|cut -f 2 -d " ");if [ -z "$c" ];then c="Uncategorized";fi;if [ ! -e $c ];then touch $c.m3u;fi;echo "$file">>$c.m3u;done

dzup · 2010-12-13 20:43:05 4
Renames all files in the current directory such that the new file contains no space characters.

This is a better version, as it does no command piping, uses for instead of while loops, which allows for a list of files in the current working directory to be natively processed. It also uses the -v/verbose option with mv to let you know what the command is doing. While the command does exactly the same in a better way, I would modify the sed option to replace spaces with underscores instead, or dashes. Please note that you'll receive errors with this command as it tries to rename files that don't even have spaces. This is an alternative to: http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/view/8761/renames-all-files-in-the-current-directory-such-that-the-new-file-contains-no-space-characters. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
`test 0' -> `test0'
`test 1' -> `test1'
`test 2' -> `test2'
`test 3' -> `test3'
`test 4' -> `test4'
`test 5' -> `test5'
`test 6' -> `test6'
`test 7' -> `test7'
`test 8' -> `test8'
`test 9' -> `test9'
```
1

for file in *; do mv -v "$file" "$(sed 's/ //g' <(echo $file))"; done

laebshade · 2011-07-10 21:08:31 6
Check if the files in current directory has the RPATH variable defined

Using gentoo prefix portage I got in a situation where some packages did not contain the needed RPATH variable. This command helped me to find out which ones I should recompile Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
libapr-1.so.0.4.5
libct.so.4.0.0
libsqlite3.so.0.8.6
libsybdb.so.5.0.0
```
1

for i in *; do file $i | grep -q ELF || continue; readelf -d $i | grep -q RPATH || echo $i; done

keymon · 2011-08-16 17:37:23 6
Find all videos under current directory using MIME a.k.a not using extension

Videos are found using their MIME type. Thus no need to for an extension for the video file. This is a efficent version of "jnash" cmd (4086). Thanks for jnash. This cmd will only show video files while his cmd show files having "video" anywhere in path. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
$ find ./ -type f -print0 | xargs -0 file -iNf - | grep ": video/" | cut -d: -f1

./.v.a-desk/atomic_city.wmv
./.mozilla/firefox/yhszbu0k.default/Cache/1/1A/9DD36d01
./.mozilla/firefox/yhszbu0k.default/Cache/7/A6/8BFE0d01
./.mozilla/firefox/yhszbu0k.default/Cache/6/63/FAE2Cd01
./.mozilla/firefox/yhszbu0k.default/Cache/9/D5/E16E0d01
$
```
1

allVideos() { find ./ -type f -print0 | xargs -0 file -iNf - | grep ": video/" | cut -d: -f1; }

totti · 2011-08-19 11:58:59 3
Replace duplicate files by hardlinks
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1

fdupes -r -1 Neu | while read line; do j="0"; buf=""; for file in ${line[*]}; do if [ "$j" == "0" ]; then j="1"; buf=$file; else ln -f $buf $file; fi; done; done

bugmenot · 2012-01-20 22:26:54 3
Get top N files in X directory

You can simply run "largest", and list the top 10 files/directories in ./, or you can pass two parameters, the first being the directory, the 2nd being the limit of files to display. Best off putting this in your bashrc or bash_profile file Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
$ largest
Getting top 10 largest files in ./
711M	./Havoc.2005.UNRATED.DVDRip.XviD-PuRE
719M	./Lincoln 2012
799M	./[ www.UsaBit.com ] - Here Comes the Boom (2012) BluRay 720p 800MB Ganool.mkv
950M	./Watchmen
1.2G	./Sucker Punch
1.4G	./The Buried Life
1.4G	./Stop-Loss
2.5G	./Django Unchained 2012 DVDSCR X264 AAC-P2P
 14G	./Justified Season 2 Complete 720p
 15G	./Justified Season 1 Completed 720p
```
1

largest() { dir=${1:-"./"}; count=${2:-"10"}; echo "Getting top $count largest files in $dir"; du -sx "$dir/"* | sort -nk 1 | tail -n $count | cut -f2 | xargs -I file du -shx file; }

jhyland87 · 2013-01-21 09:45:21 7
Encode file path to URL

Really helpfull when play with files having spaces an other bad name. Easy to store and access names and path in just a field while saving it in a file. This format (URL) is directly supported by nautilus and firefox (and other browsers) Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
$ convert_path2uri '/tmp/a/b c+d'
file:///tmp/a/b%20c%2bd
```
1

convert_path2uri () { echo -n 'file://'; echo -n "$1" | perl -pe 's/([^a-zA-Z0-9_\/.])/sprintf("%%%.2x", ord($1))/eg' ;} #convert2uri '/tmp/a b' ### convert file path to URI

totti · 2013-07-01 08:54:45 7
rsync Command that limits bandwidth

Useful for transferring large file over a network during operational hours
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1

rsync -arvx --numeric-ids --stats --progress --bwlimit=1000 file server:destination_directory

shawn_abdushakur · 2013-10-01 13:00:59 10
Converts all windows .URL shortcuts in a directory to linux (gnome) .desktop shortcuts
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1

find . -name "*.URL" | while read file ; do cat "$file" | sed 's/InternetShortcut/Desktop Entry/' | sed '/^$URL\|\[$/!d' > "$file".desktop && echo "Type=Link" >> "$file".desktop ; done

pholz · 2014-01-30 09:57:08 7
Convert CSV to JSON - Python3 and Bash function

Based / Inspired by malathion's below command http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/view/20528/convert-csv-to-json Is written for python3 and is very easy to use csv2json *csv will convert all files ending in csv to json eg csv2json file.csv will output a file to file.json Validity of json tested in python3 and below site https://jsonformatter.curiousconcept.com/
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1

csv2json() { for file in $@; do python -c "import csv,json,fileinput; print(json.dumps(list(csv.reader(fileinput.input()))))" "$file" 1> "${file%%csv}json"; done; }

snipertyler · 2017-06-28 04:28:32 16
Silently deletes lines containing a specific string in a bunch of files

This command will find all occurrences of one or more patterns in a collection of files and will delete every line matching the patterns in every file
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1

for file in $(egrep 'abc|def' *.sql | cut -d":" -f1 | uniq); do sed -i '/abc/d' ./$file ; sed -i '/def/d' ./$file; done

guillaume1306 · 2018-12-10 16:23:20 30
list human readable files

include in the list human readable hidden files too: file .* *|grep 'ASCII text'|sort -rk2 more reliable command: ls|xargs file|grep 'ASCII text'|sort -rk2 and include hidden files: ls -a|xargs file|grep 'ASCII text'|sort -rk2
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1

file *|grep 'ASCII text'|sort -rk2

knoppix5 · 2019-08-23 00:47:07 149
Find non-ASCII and UTF-8 files in the current directory
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1

find . -type f -regex '.*\.$cpp\|h$' -exec file {} \; | grep "UTF-8\|extended-ASCII"

swarzynski · 2020-09-15 09:10:02 203
Create files of arbitrary size in Windows

This command creates a file of arbitrary size in a windows environment. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
fsutil file createnew deleteme 1024
File C:\deleteme is created

C:\>dir deleteme
...
Directory of C:\
02/05/2009  12:33 PM             1,024 deleteme
               1 File(s)          1,024 bytes
               0 Dir(s)   8,777,101,312 bytes free
```
0

fsutil file createnew FILENAME filesize(inbytes)

archlich · 2009-02-05 17:36:33 21
Quickly clean log files (assuming you don't want them anymore)

Empties all files in /var/log over 5000k. Useful if /var goes crazy or if you just haven't cleaned up in a while.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

for file in `find /var/log/ -type f -size +5000k`; do echo " " > $file; done

jemmille · 2009-07-03 16:26:36 6
Quickly clean log files (assuming you don't want them anymore)

you don't need to echo, just a plain redirect is enough to empty the file
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

for file in `find /var/log/ -type f -size +5000k`; do > $file; done

svg · 2009-07-03 17:38:21 8
append content of a file to itself

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. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
echo "Just one line" >> file
cat file
> Just one line
cat file | tee >> file
cat file
> Just one line
> Just one line
```
0

cat file | tee >> file

GeckoDH · 2009-07-30 07:34:03 7
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Install pip with Proxy

Installs pip packages defining a proxy

Delete empty, 24-hours-old directories recursively, without consider hidden directories

Convert a file from ISO-8859-1 (or whatever) to UTF-8 (or whatever)

I use it sometimes when I work on a french file transferred from a windows XP to a Debian-UTF8 system. Those are not correctly displayed: ? ? ? and so on $man tcs # for all charsets

check open ports without netstat or lsof

Slow down the screen output of a command

(example above is the 'ls' command with reduced output speed)

Detect illegal access to kernel space, potentially useful for Meltdown detection

Based on capsule8 agent examples, not rigorously tested

convert a mp4 video file to mp3 audio file (multiple files)

search string in _all_ revisions

Open a Remote Desktop (RDP) session with a custom resolution.

Using a widescreen monitor, I often get annoyed that the RDP window is too high, or too narrow for what I want to display. In this example, I'm on a 1680 x 1050 display.

Create a large test file (taking no space).

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Commands using file (166)

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