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 25
  • Determines latest pdf file downloaded by firefox in ~/Downloads directory


    0
    ls -tr ~/Downloads/*.pdf|tail -1
    masroor · 2018-05-14 14:01:55 157
  • 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 06:11:41 314
  • 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
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Recursive cat - concatenate files (filtered by extension) across multiple subdirectories into one file
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 \;

See how many more processes are allowed, awesome!
There is a limit to how many processes you can run at the same time for each user, especially with web hosts. If the maximum # of processes for your user is 200, then the following sets OPTIMUM_P to 100. $ OPTIMUM_P=$(( (`ulimit -u` - `find /proc -maxdepth 1 \( -user $USER -o -group $GROUPNAME \) -type d|wc -l`) / 2 )) This is very useful in scripts because this is such a fast low-resource-intensive (compared to ps, who, lsof, etc) way to determine how many processes are currently running for whichever user. The number of currently running processes is subtracted from the high limit setup for the account (see limits.conf, pam, initscript). An easy to understand example- this searches the current directory for shell scripts, and runs up to 100 'file' commands at the same time, greatly speeding up the command. $ find . -type f | xargs -P $OPTIMUM_P -iFNAME file FNAME | sed -n '/shell script text/p' I am using it in my http://www.askapache.com/linux-unix/bash_profile-functions-advanced-shell.html especially for the xargs command. Xargs has a -P option that lets you specify how many processes to run at the same time. For instance if you have 1000 urls in a text file and wanted to download all of them fast with curl, you could download 100 at a time (check ps output on a separate [pt]ty for proof) like this: $ cat url-list.txt | xargs -I '{}' -P $OPTIMUM_P curl -O '{}' I like to do things as fast as possible on my servers. I have several types of servers and hosting environments, some with very restrictive jail shells with 20processes limit, some with 200, some with 8000, so for the jailed shells my xargs -P10 would kill my shell or dump core. Using the above I can set the -P value dynamically, so xargs always works, like this. $ cat url-list.txt | xargs -I '{}' -P $OPTIMUM_P curl -O '{}' If you were building a process-killer (very common for cheap hosting) this would also be handy. Note that if you are only allowed 20 or so processes, you should just use -P1 with xargs.

Search commandlinefu.com from the command line using the API
Search for one/many words on commandlinefu, results in vim for easy copy, manipulation. The -R flag is for readonly mode...you can still write to a file, but vim won't prompt for save on quit. What I'd really like is a way to do this from within vim in a new tab. Something like $ :Tex path/to/file but $ :cmdfu search terms

force a rescan on a host of scsi devices (useful for adding partitions to vmware on the fly)

Top ten memory hogs
Inspired by #7065

Batch convert PNG to JPEG
Convert all PNG images in directory to JPEG using ImageMagick, and delete the old PNG images.

escape any command aliases
e.g. if rm is aliased for 'rm -i', you can escape the alias by prepending a backslash: rm [file] # WILL prompt for confirmation per the alias \rm [file] # will NOT prompt for confirmation per the default behavior of the command

List of commands you use most often

Play all the music in a folder, on shuffle
Play files in shuffle mode with bash and mpg123. Why bother using big-as-hell stuff like mplayer? This will play all your music files contained in */* (in my case author/song.format) with bash and mplayer showing a nice output.

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"

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