Commands using file sorted by votes

Commands using file (166)

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Cat files in a directory; for loop command

Original submitted version would break if any filenames had whitespaces in them. The command is a Bad Idea anyhow, because you will end up `cat`ing a binary or something else specacularly bad.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-2

for file in ./*; do cat "$file"; sleep 0.3

DopeGhoti · 2011-11-28 20:10:57 3
Write in a text file the contents of all the zip files in a directory.

It can be used to create an index of a backup directory or to find some file.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-2

for file in *.zip; do unzip -l "$file" >> archiveindex.txt ; done;

chon8a · 2013-05-02 01:43:26 7
Reset the last modified time for each file in a git repo to its last commit time
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-2

for file in $( git ls-files ); do echo $file; touch -t $(git --no-pager log --date=local -1 --format="%ct" $file | php -r 'echo @date( "YmdHi.s", trim( file_get_contents( "php://stdin" ) ) );') $file; done

westonruter · 2015-07-01 00:28:06 13
stores the number of lines of "file" in a variable to use in a loop
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-3

count=`wc -l file | cut -d ' ' -f1`

vmplacco · 2009-02-25 21:21:47 5
convert all WAVs from any format (MS ADPCM) to PCM

I needed this for wine.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-3

for file in $(find -type f -iname "*wav"); do mv $file "$file"_orig.WAV; mplayer -ao pcm "$file"_orig.WAV -ao pcm:file=$file; done

oernii · 2009-04-06 21:36:04 6
determine if a shared library is compiled as 32bit or 64bit

file displays a files type the -L flag means follow sym-links (as libraries are often sym-linked to another this behavior is likely preferred) more complex behavior (*two* grep commands!) could be used to determine if the file is or is not a shared library.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-3

file -L <library> | grep -q '64-bit' && echo 'library is 64 bit' || echo 'library is 32 bit'

infinull · 2010-03-07 06:31:35 3
Recursive and alphabetical orderly cp
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-3

for file in `find *| sort -n | sed 's% %?%g'`; do echo "${file//?/ }"; cp --parents "${file//?/ }" /destinity_folder/ ;done

juanmi · 2011-05-23 16:34:08 7
Remove blank lines from a file and save output to new file
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-4

sed '/^$/d' file >newfile

haplo · 2009-09-24 19:22:49 5
download file1 file2 file3 file4 .... file 100

With counter format [001, 002, ..., 999] , nice with pictures or wallpapers collections.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-4

for file in $(seq -f '%03.f' 1 $TOTAL ); do echo "($file/$TOTAL)"; curl -f -O http://domain.com/Name_$file.ext; done

nordri · 2010-01-12 15:23:44 6
a find and replace within text-based files, for batch text replacement, not using perl
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-5

for file in `find . -iname "FILENAME"`; do cat $file | sed "s/SEARCH_STRING/REPLACE_STRING/" > $file.tmp; mv $file.tmp $file; done

unixmonkey6754 · 2010-02-24 13:46:29 3
Numerate files, rename files in a directory by incremental number

Renames files in a directory to incremental numbers, following alphabetic order. The command does not maintain extensions.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-5

declare -i i; i=0; for file in *; do i=`expr $i+1`; mv "$file" $i; done;

themiurgo · 2010-08-26 12:24:38 5
Numerate files, rename files in a directory by incremental number
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-5

declare -i i=0 ; for file in * ; do i=$[$i+1] ; mv "$file" $i; done

pepin · 2010-08-26 12:40:58 3
list with full path
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-6

for file in *; do echo $PWD/$file; done

Velenux · 2011-12-16 13:12:00 4
remove all dead symbolic links in a directory
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-8

for i in $(file * | grep broken | cut -d : -f 1); do rm $i; done

Znuff · 2010-11-02 16:10:42 10
list with full path

Also lists hidden files, current dir and topdir.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-8

for file in * .*; do echo $PWD/$file; done

marek158 · 2011-12-16 13:42:07 3
Find broken symlinks
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-9

find . -type l | xargs file | grep broken

kineticrick · 2011-04-07 22:58:02 4
‹ First < 5 6 7

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Insert a line at the top of a text file without sed or awk or bash loops

Yet another way to add a line at the top a of text file with the help of the tac command (reverse cat).

Compress excutable files in place.

The gzexe utility allows you to compress executables in place and have them automatically uncompress and execute when you run them. FYI: You can compress any executable sha-bang scripts as well (py, pl, sh, tcl, etc.).

Makes the permissions of file2 the same as file1

Also works with: $chgrp --reference file1 file2 $chown --reference file1 file2

cd to (or operate on) a file across parallel directories

This is useful for quickly jumping around branches in a file system, or operating on a parellel file. This is tested in bash. cd to (substitute in PWD, a for b) where PWD is the bash environmental variable for the "working directory"

Infinite loop ssh

Easily find latex package documentation

If the pdf/dvi/etc documentation for a latex package is already part of your local texmf tree, then texdoc will find and display it for you. If the documentation is not available on your system, it will bring up the package's webpage at CTAN to help you investigate.

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"

Create a git alias that will pull and fast-forward the current branch if there are no conflicts

This command will first add an alias known only to git, which will allow you to pull a remote and first-forward the current branch. However, if the remote/branch and your branch have diverged, it will stop before actually trying to merge the two, so you can back out the changes. http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-pull.html Tested on git 1.5.6.1, msysgit (Windows port) Actually this is not really the way I want it. I want it to attempt a fast-foward, but not attempt to merge or change my working copy. Unfortunately git pull doesn't have that functionality (yet?).

Remove security limitations from PDF documents using ghostscript (for Windows)

#4345 also works under windows

Find usb device in realtime

Using this command you can track a moment when usb device was attached.

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Commands using file (166)

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