Commands using ls (517)

  • Returns the N most recently modified files from anywhere 'below' (and including) the current working directory, in order, with details.

    Returns a list, with attributes (think `ls -l`), in reverse chronological order. N is a single numeric parameter. Robust against unfriendly filenames and directory structures. Show Sample Output


    0
    nmf() { find . -type f -printf '%T@ ' -print0 -printf '\n' | sort -rn | head -"$1" | cut -f2- -d" " | tr -d "\0" | tr "\n" "\0" | xargs -0 ls -Ulh; }
    incidentnormal · 2016-03-04 14:53:14 12
  • display colored list items in less pager

    I've shortened it to: lsc PATH | l ... by adding ... alias lsc="ls --color" ... and ... alias l="less -R" ... to my ~/.bashrc file


    0
    ls --color PATH | less -R
    kevjonesin · 2016-03-07 13:46:02 13
  • Convert json files to tsv text blob

    Grabs the first JSON file in the directory, reads its keys, prints TSV, then prints all the json files' values as TSV. Nested objects appear as json. Unhappy times if your json has literal tabs in it. Show Sample Output


    0
    jq -r 'keys | join("\t")' $(ls -f *.json | head -1) && jq -Sr 'to_entries | [ .[] | .value | tostring ] | join("\t")' *.json
    drjeats · 2016-04-08 23:30:30 12
  • Nicer ls, directories first and colorized (MacOS)

    It will print a compact ls -la list with the directories at the beginning. --almost-all - do not list implied . and .. --group-directories-first - group directories before files --color - colorize the output --no-group - in a long listing, don't print group names --human-readable - print human readable sizes (e.g., 1K 234M 2G) --classify - append indicator (one of */=>@|) to entries If you want to see the owner: ls -l --almost-all --group-directories-first --color --no-group --human-readable --classify Show Sample Output


    0
    ls -g --almost-all --group-directories-first --color --no-group --human-readable --classify
    icatalina · 2016-04-15 17:12:35 13
  • List latest 5 modified files recursively

    This command will find any named file types in / between two dates then will list all the metadata of those files in long format and human readable form. Adding a 't' flag to the ls command sorts the files by modified time. After all that the head -5 lists the first 5 which can be changed.


    0
    ls -laht `find / -name "*.*" -type f -newermt "2016-04-05" ! -newermt "2016-04-10"`|head -5
    ubercoo · 2016-04-19 14:26:23 10
  • Display "ls -l" output with color in less


    0
    ls -l --color | less -R
    Sparkette · 2016-05-07 17:19:56 11
  • Display a random man page


    0
    man $(ls /bin | shuf -n1)
    jubnzv · 2016-06-28 18:34:46 12
  • Let your computer read ls for you instead of reading it on your own

    Pipes the output of ls to espeak Also works nice with fortune fortune | espeak


    0
    ls | espeak
    BigZ · 2016-08-02 17:54:39 13
  • See how many times you've typed 'ls' by itself

    I seem to do this compulsively every time I change directories, sometimes even when I don't, even if I know exactly what I need to do. (Don't worry, the sample output is just an exaggeration. :) Show Sample Output


    0
    grep -cx ls ~/.bash_history
    Sparkette · 2016-09-14 17:06:59 17
  • List just the executable files (or directories) in current directory

    ls -l outputs long listing of files to awk, which sorts the output to include all lines that have the executable bit set (-x.), but excludes (!) the lines that have the directory bit set (drw), then prints the results to the screen. Show Sample Output


    0
    ls -l|awk ''/-x./' && !'/drw/' {print}'
    PCnetMD · 2016-09-21 14:42:10 15
  • Sum file sizes of found files


    0
    find . -mtime +30 -exec ls -all "{}" \; | awk '{COUNTER+=$5} END {SIZE=COUNTER/1024/1024; print "size sum of found files is: " SIZE "MB"}'
    breign · 2016-10-28 08:05:57 16
  • Resume incomplete youtube-dl video files

    Resume incomplete youtube-dl video files. Assuming mp4 format here.


    0
    ls *.part | sed 's/^.*-\(.\{11,11\}\)\.mp4\.part$/\1/g' - | youtube-dl -i -f mp4 -a -
    agp · 2017-02-28 23:31:55 21
  • Get the total length of all video / audio in the current dir (and below) in H:m:s

    All the other example fail when running in a folder containing too many files due to * being saturated. This command does not use *, allowing me to run it in one folder containing over 300000 audio files. As to running on so many files, I used GNU parallel in order to spawn as many processes as cores, tremendously fasting up the process. Show Sample Output


    0
    ls|grep ".wav"|parallel -j$(nproc) soxi -D {}|awk '{SUM += $1} END { printf "%d:%d:%d\n",SUM/3600,SUM%3600/60,SUM%60}'
    jupiter126 · 2017-05-02 21:37:24 20
  • Keep the last 10 moodle backups


    0
    ls -t /mcdata/archive/learn/backup-moodle2-course-* | tail -n +11 | xargs -I {} rm {}
    tlezotte · 2017-05-04 13:50:02 17
  • File count into directories

    Show file count into directories. Usefull when you try to find hugh directories that elevate system CPU (vmstat -> sy) Show Sample Output


    0
    find / -type d | while read i; do ls $i | wc -l | tr -d \\n; echo " -> $i"; done | sort -n
    Zort · 2017-05-12 00:02:43 19
  • Find Duplicate Files (based on size, name, and md5sum)

    It works extremely fast, because it calculates md5sum only on the files that have the same size and name. But there is nothing for free - it won't find duplicates with the different names. Show Sample Output


    0
    find -type f -printf '%20s\t%100f\t%p\n' | sort -n | uniq -Dw121 | awk -F'\t' '{print $3}' | xargs -d '\n' md5sum | uniq -Dw32 | cut -b 35- | xargs -d '\n' ls -lU
    ant7 · 2017-05-21 02:26:16 16
  • Find latest modified log


    0
    find . -name '*.log' | xargs ls -hlt > /tmp/logs.txt && vi /tmp/logs.txt
    zluyuer · 2017-07-07 05:13:51 20
  • When you realise your AMI doesn't come with NTP


    0
    AWS_DEFAULT_REGION="sa-east-1" jungle ec2 ls | grep midas | sort | cut -f4 | xargs -I {} ssh ubuntu@{} sudo apt-get install ntp -y
    xymor · 2017-11-22 19:20:08 19
  • Memorable recursive directory listing

    To HUNT for all the important stuffs. TRUST EL TRAPPER Works every time!


    0
    ls -ltrapR
    K33st · 2018-03-19 18:15:51 26
  • Determines latest pdf file downloaded by firefox in ~/Downloads directory


    0
    ls -tr ~/Downloads/*.pdf|tail -1
    masroor · 2018-05-14 14:01:55 161
  • Export all Stremio movie names

    I couldn't find movie library on any of the SQLlite Stremio databases, but on ~/.config/stremio/backgrounds2 the background image filenames corresponds to IMDB URL. So I foreach files and wget HTML title of each movie and save it to a file. This will retrieve all movie names, not just the Library.


    0
    time for movie in $(ls -1 $HOME/.config/stremio/backgrounds2 | sort -u);do echo "https://www.imdb.com/title/$movie/" | wget -qO- -O- -i- --header="Accept-Language: en" | hxclean | hxselect -s '\n' -c 'title' 2>/dev/null | tee -a ~/movie-list.txt ; done
    pabloab · 2018-08-16 06:11:41 319
  • watches every second, a directory listing as it changes

    On Linux, use watch -n 1 ls path/to/dir H/t: https://stackoverflow.com/a/9574123/805405 Show Sample Output


    0
    while :; do clear; ls path/to/dir | wc -l; sleep 1; done
    minademian · 2018-12-13 17:48:24 231
  • find all files that have 20 or more MB on every filesystem, change the size and filesystem to your liking

    find all files that have 20 or more MB on every filesystem, change the size and filesystem to your liking


    0
    find / -type f -size +20000k -exec ls -lh {} \; 2> /dev/null | awk '{ print $NF ": " $5 }' | sort -nrk 2,2
    Marius · 2019-07-08 21:04:09 37
  • Check out hijacked files in clearcase


    -1
    cleartool co -nc `cleartool ls -recurse | grep "hijacked" | sed s/\@\@.*// | xargs`
    ultrahax · 2009-02-06 00:03:51 51
  • Store mp3 playlist on variable and play with mpg123

    On my music directory, I create variable that contains all mp3s files, then I play them with mpg123. -C options enable terminal control key, s for stop, p for pause, f for forward to next song.


    -1
    PLAYLIST=$(ls -1) ; mpg123 -C $PLAYLIST
    servermanaged · 2009-03-19 17:20:28 12
  • ‹ First  < 13 14 15 16 17 >  Last ›

What's this?

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.

Share Your Commands

Check These Out

user 'tr' to convert mixed case in a file to lower case
convert mixed case in a file to lower case

drop first column of output by piping to this

Lists all listening ports together with the PID of the associated process
This command is more portable than it's cousin netstat. It works well on all the BSDs, GNU/Linux, AIX and Mac OS X. You won't find lsof by default on Solaris or HPUX by default, but packages exist around the web for installation, if needed, and the command works as shown. This is the most portable command I can find that lists listening ports and their associated pid.

Get list of servers with a specific port open
Change the -p argument for the port number. See "man nmap" for different ways to specify address ranges.

Detect illegal access to kernel space, potentially useful for Meltdown detection
Based on capsule8 agent examples, not rigorously tested

Viewing Top Processes according to cpu, mem, swap size, etc.
I've wanted this for a long time, finally just sat down and came up with it. This shows you the sorted output of ps in a pretty format perfect for cron or startup scripts. You can sort by changing the k -vsz to k -pmem for example to sort by memory instead. If you want a function, here's one from my http://www.askapache.com/linux-unix/bash_profile-functions-advanced-shell.html $ aa_top_ps(){ local T N=${1:-10};T=${2:-vsz}; ps wwo pid,user,group,vsize:8,size:8,sz:6,rss:6,pmem:7,pcpu:7,time:7,wchan,sched=,stat,flags,comm,args k -${T} -A|sed -u "/^ *PID/d;${N}q"; }

Email yourself after a job is done
This is a two part command that comes in really handy if you're running commands that take longer than you're willing to wait. The commands are separated by the semicolon(;) The first command is whatever you're attempting to do. The second commands emails you after the job completes.

List only directories, one per line
Alternatively, $ ls -F | grep /\$ but will break on directories containing newlines. Or the safe, POSIX sh way (but will miss dotfiles): $ for i in *; do test -d "./$i" && printf "%s\n" "$i"; done

Force the script to be started as root
Will run the script as root and exit if the wrong or no password is given. Also will keep the parameters active if any where given.

history autocompletion with arrow keys
This will enable the possibility to navigate in the history of the command you type with the arrow keys, example "na" and the arrow will give all command starting by na in the history.You can add these lines to your .bashrc (without &&) to use that in your default terminal.

Stay in the loop…

Follow the Tweets.

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

Subscribe to the feeds.

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: