Commands using xargs sorted by votes

Commands using xargs (769)

sorted by

Convert one's Java source file encoding

One of my friends committed his code in the encoding of GB2312, which broke the build job. I have to find his code and convert.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-1

find . -name "*.java" -type f -perm +600 -print | xargs -I _ sh -c 'grep -q hexianmao _ && iconv -f gb2312 -t utf8 -o _ -c _ '

Sunng · 2011-03-08 13:02:25 7
Clean-up release directories keeping the only the latest two

Deletes capistrano-style release directories (except that there are dashes between the YYYY-MM-DD) Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
user@server:~/apps/appname/releases$ ls
2010-12-02-121502  2010-12-01-215457
```
-1

find . -maxdepth 1 -type d | grep -Pv "^.$" | sort -rn --field-separator="-" | sed -n '3,$p' | xargs rm -rf

wilmoore · 2011-03-08 17:38:26 6
this svn script will commit all files excluding those with extensions {.project .classpath .properties .sh .number} and those with Status Modified or Added {M or A}
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-1

svn st | grep -e [MA] | egrep -ve '.project|.classpath|.properties|.sh|.number' | awk -F' ' '{ print $2}' | xargs svn ci -m "message"

drunkcoder · 2011-03-10 15:32:36 6
easily strace all your apache processes
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-1

ps -C apache o pid= | sed 's/^/-p /' | xargs strace

depesz · 2011-03-15 08:46:33 3
bulk rename files with sed, one-liner
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-1

ls | sed 'p;s/foo/bar/' | xargs -n2 mv

pkufranky · 2011-04-30 10:56:35 3
urldecoding

urldecode files in current directrory
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-1

ls * | while read fin;do fout=$(echo -n $fin | sed -e's/%$[0-9A-F][0-9A-F]$/\\\\\x\1/g' | xargs echo -e);if [ "$fout" != "$fin" ];then echo "mv '$fin' '$fout'";fi;done | bash -x

pawelb1973 · 2011-05-18 07:24:54 82
Undo Mercurial add before commit

Undo accidental file add to mercurial. This command undo file adds to all recent adds
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-1

hg st --added -n |xargs hg revert

yrcjaya · 2011-06-01 19:54:41 3
Purge application's residual config & orphans
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-1

dpkg -l | sed '/^rc/!d;s/^[^ ]* [^ ]* $[^ ]*$.*/\1/' | xargs -r sudo apt-get -y purge

plasticdoc · 2011-06-05 09:19:27 3

Clone all remote branches of a specific GitHub repository

-1

git branch -a | grep "remotes/origin" | grep -v master | awk -F / '{print $3}' | xargs -I % git clone -b % git://github.com/jamesotron/DevWorld-2010-Cocoa-Workshop %

evandrix · 2011-06-29 00:13:47 3

Count the lines of source code in directory, ignoring files in generated by svn

There's nothing particularly novel about this combination of find, grep, and wc, I'm just putting it here in case I want it again. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
123 ./src/java/com/company/app/service/Foo.java
 42 ./test/java/com/company/app/service/FooTests.java
165 total
```
-1

find . -name '*.java' -o -name '*.xml' | grep -v '\.svn' | xargs wc -l

ewilson · 2011-06-30 12:45:40 5
do a full file listing of every file found with locate

Escapes spaces in paths.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-1

locate -i yourfilename | sed 's/ /\\ /g' | xargs ls -lah | less

unixmonkey23919 · 2011-07-26 13:00:39 4
Generate an XKCD #936 style 4 word password

Doesn't use shuf, its much faster with "shuf -n4" instead of sort -R Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
trample tylenol parawing bycatch 
```
-1

sort -R /usr/share/dict/british | grep -v -m4 ^\{1,10\}$ | tr [:upper:] [:lower:] | tr "\n" " " | tr -d "'s" | xargs -0 echo

takac · 2011-08-16 10:11:21 4
find&grep all in once

calls grep on all non-binary files returned by find on its current working directory Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
./Main.java://	public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException
```
-1

#!/bin/bash find | grep -P -v "(class)|(zip)|(png)|(gz)|(gif)|(jpeg)|(jpg)" | xargs -I @ grep -H $1 @

kirdie · 2011-10-14 13:28:49 4
sets desktop background using zenity

Assuming you have zenity installed, and assuming that you keep your backgrounds in ~/backgrounds, then this should work for you! :)
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-1

zenity --list --width 500 --height 500 --column 'Wallpapers' $(ls) | xargs xsetbg -center -smooth -fullscreen

TheShadowFog · 2011-11-15 02:44:48 4
full text(CJK) search mails and link the result to $MAILDIR/bingo/cur/
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-1

recoll -t -q "keyword" | grep message/rfc822 | sed -s 's,^.*$'$MAILDIR'[^]]*$\].*$,\"\1\",' | xargs ln -sft $MAILDIR/bingo/cur/

s5unty · 2011-12-09 17:22:51 3
recursively detecting files with a BOM
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-1

find . -type f -print0 | xargs -0r awk '/^\xEF\xBB\xBF/ {print FILENAME} {nextfile}'

unixmonkey24812 · 2012-01-11 03:15:12 4
copy all Photos from Canon A520 to one place

You must spezify /where folder and / folder If you have another camera you must experiment with Exif data (after -g and after grep) and mask of your photo files IMG_????.JPG I have do it on Knoppix 6.7.0 You must have installed exiv2. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
a lot of errors, it is pictures from another Cameras, which can't be grepped...
```
-1

find / -type f -name IMG_????.JPG -print0 |xargs -0 exiv2 -g Exif.Canon.ModelID '{}' |grep A520 |rev |cut --complement -d " " -f1-40 |rev |xargs -I {} cp --parents {} /where

fladam · 2012-03-10 03:01:01 3
SAR - List top CPU usage spikes over the last month using sar.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-1

ls /var/log/sa/sa[0-9]*|xargs -I '{}' sar -u -f {}|awk '/^[0-9]/&&!/^12:00:01|RESTART|CPU/{print "%user: "$4" %system: "$6" %iowait: "$7" %nice: "$5" %idle: "$9}'|sort -nk10|head

omatictost · 2012-10-25 18:27:47 5
Multiple open files and go directly to the line where some string is

Open all files which have some string go directly to the first line where that string is and run command on it. Other examples: Run vim only once with multiple files (and just go to string in the first one): grep -rl string_to_find public_html/css/ | xargs vim +/string_to_find Run vim for each file, go to string in every one and run command (to delete line): grep -rl string_to_find public_html/css/ | xargs -I '{}' vim +/string_to_find {} -c ":delete"
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-1

grep -rl string_to_find public_html/css/ | xargs -I '{}' vim +/string_to_find {} -c ":s/string_to_find/string_replaced"

algol · 2012-11-07 14:44:51 5
rename multiple files with different name, eg converting all txt to csv
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-1

touch file{1..10}.txt ; ls *txt| sed -e "p;s/\.txt$/\.csv/"|xargs -n2 mv

nomankhn · 2013-02-08 15:09:20 4
Find files and list them sorted by modification time
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-1

find -type f | xargs ls -1tr

unixmonkey50727 · 2013-03-20 16:43:54 4
Recursively change permissions on files, leave directories alone.

xargs is a more elegant approach to executing a command on find results then -exec as -exec is meant as a filtering flag.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-1

find /var/www/ -type f -print0 | xargs -0 chmod 644

FiloSottile · 2013-03-28 11:10:30 6
purge half of files in backup directory

If you have a directory with lot of backups (full backups I mean), when it gets to some size, you could want to empty some space. With this command you'll remove half of the files. The command assumes that your backup files starts with YYYYMMDD or that they go some alphabetical order. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
(nothing, it will remove half of the files)
```
-1

find . | sort | awk 'NR%2==0' | xargs rm $1

sucotronic · 2013-07-11 07:36:18 10
list each file/directory size in a directory
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-1

ls | xargs -I{} du -sh {}

kenshin54 · 2013-07-28 04:18:25 8
Uninstall all gems

This command removes all ruby gems except the default ones that can not be removed. It is based on http://geekystuff.net/2009/01/14/remove-all-ruby-gems/
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-1

gem list | cut -d" " -f1 | grep --invert-match "test-unit\|psych\|io-console\|rdoc\|json\|bigdecimal\|rake\|minitest" | xargs gem uninstall -aIx

gdelfino · 2014-01-10 10:58:59 9
‹ First < 25 26 27 28 29 > 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

Dump HTTP header using wget

Let me suggest using wget for obtaining the HTTP header only as the last resort because it generates considerable textual overhead. The first ellipsis of the sample output stands for Spider mode enabled. Check if remote file exists. --2009-03-31 20:42:46-- http://www.example.com/ Resolving www.example.com... 208.77.188.166 Connecting to www.example.com|208.77.188.166|:80... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... and the second one looks for Length: 438 [text/html] Remote file exists and could contain further links, but recursion is disabled -- not retrieving.

Configure second monitor to sit to the right of laptop

You'll need to make sure your xorg.conf permits a virtual screen size this big. If it doesn't then xrandr should return a suitable error message that tells you the required size.

Apply new patch for a directory (originDir)

convert unixtime to human-readable

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"

Convert seconds to [DD:][HH:]MM:SS

Converts any number of seconds into days, hours, minutes and seconds. sec2dhms() { declare -i SS="$1" D=$(( SS / 86400 )) H=$(( SS % 86400 / 3600 )) M=$(( SS % 3600 / 60 )) S=$(( SS % 60 )) [ "$D" -gt 0 ] && echo -n "${D}:" [ "$H" -gt 0 ] && printf "%02g:" "$H" printf "%02g:%02g\n" "$M" "$S" }

Show Mac OS X version information

grep for minus (-) sign

Use flag "--" to stop switch parsing

Export a subset of a database

Limits the number of rows per table to X

Install pip with Proxy

Installs pip packages defining a proxy

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:

» all commands
» commands with 3 up-votes (commandlinefu3)
» commands with 10 up-votes (commandlinefu10)
» commands using xargs

Commands using xargs (769) the last day the last week the last month all time sorted by date votes

What's this?

Check These Out

Stay in the loop…

Commands using xargs (769)

sorted by