Commands using printf (206)

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

Check if *hardware* is 32bit or 64bit
CPU flags: rm --> 16-bit processor (real mode) tm --> 32-bit processor (? mode) lm --> 64-bit processor (long mode)

Identify differences between directories (possibly on different servers)
This can be much faster than downloading one or both trees to a common servers and comparing the files there. After, only those files could be copied down for deeper comparison if needed.

Place the argument of the most recent command on the shell
When typing out long arguments, such as: $ cp file.txt /var/www/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/ You can put that argument on your command line by holding down the ALT key and pressing the period '.' or by pressing <ESC> then the period '.'. For example: $ cd 'ALT+.' would put '/var/www/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/ as my argument. Keeping pressing 'ALT+.' to cycle through arguments of your commands starting from most recent to oldest. This can save a ton of typing.

concatenate compressed and uncompressed logs
I use zgrep because it also parses non gzip files. With ls -tr, we parse logs in time order. Greping the empty string just concatenates all logs, but you can also grep an IP, an URL...

Print trending topics on Twitter

Check availability of Websites based on HTTP_CODE

Know which version dpkg/apt considers more recent
Compares two versions with dpkg. It is not always obvious what version dpkg/apt will consider to be more recent. Operators include the following : * These treat an empty version as earlier than any version: lt le eq ne ge gt. * These treat an empty version as later than any version: lt-nl le-nl ge-nl gt-nl. * These are provided only for compatibility with control file syntax: < > >. This command doesn't output anything. It only returns with status 0 or 1, hence the echo "y" || echo "n" to get an output.

Search and replace in multiple files recursively
Replace "foo" with "bar" in all files in current directory recursively

List the size (in human readable form) of all sub folders from the current location

list files recursively by size


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: