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View the newest xkcd comic.

Terminal - View the newest xkcd comic.
echo alias xkcd="gwenview `w3m -dump http://xkcd.com/|grep png | awk '{print $5}'` 2> /dev/null" >> .bashrc
2010-01-30 20:38:16
User: GinoMan2440
Functions: alias echo
-4
Up
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View the newest xkcd comic.

Add an alias to your .bashrc that allows you to issue the command xkcd to view (with gwenview) the newest xkcd comic... I know there are thousands of them out there but this one is at least replete with installer and also uses a more concise syntax... plus, gwenview shows you the downloading progress as it downloads the comic and gives you a more full featured viewing experience.

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Alternatives

There are 10 alternatives - vote for the best!

Terminal - Alternatives
xkcd(){ wget -qO- http://xkcd.com/|tee >(feh $(grep -Po '(?<=")http://imgs[^/]+/comics/[^"]+\.\w{3}'))|grep -Po '(?<=(\w{3})" title=").*(?=" alt)';}
2009-11-27 09:11:47
User: eightmillion
Functions: grep tee wget
Tags: bash curl function xkcd comic webcomic
21
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View the newest xkcd comic.

This function displays the latest comic from xkcd.com. One of the best things about xkcd is the title text when you hover over the comic, so this function also displays that after you close the comic.

To get a random xkcd comic, I also use the following:

xkcdrandom(){ wget -qO- dynamic.xkcd.com/comic/random|tee >(feh $(grep -Po '(?<=")http://imgs[^/]+/comics/[^"]+\.\w{3}'))|grep -Po '(?<=(\w{3})" title=").*(?=" alt)';}
Comments (11) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious
eog `curl -s http://xkcd.com/ | sed -n 's/<h3>Image URL.*: \(.*\)<\/h3>/\1/p'`
2010-08-31 13:23:21
User: bluesman
Functions: sed
Tags: bash curl function xkcd comic webcomic
5
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View the newest xkcd comic.
Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious
wget `lynx --dump http://xkcd.com/|grep png`
2009-12-03 23:10:22
User: metalx1000
Functions: grep wget
Tags: bash wget lynx curl function xkcd comic webcomic
1
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View the newest xkcd comic.
Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious
curl -s 'xkcd.com' | awk -F\" '/^<img/{printf("<?xml version=\"1.0\"?>\n<xkcd>\n<item>\n <title>%s</title>\n <comment>%s</comment>\n <image>%s</image>\n</item>\n</xkcd>\n", $6, $4, $2)}'
2009-12-03 19:49:37
User: putnamhill
Functions: awk
Tags: awk curl xkcd comic webcomic
0
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View the newest xkcd comic.

I wasn't sure how to display the image, so I thought I'd try xml for a different twist.

Show sample output | Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious
xkcd() { wget -qO- http://xkcd.com/ | sed -n 's#^<img src="\(http://imgs.[^"]\+\)"\s\+title="\(.\+\?\)"\salt.\+$#eog "\1"\necho '"'\2'#p" | bash ; }
2010-08-25 15:44:31
User: John_W
Functions: bash sed wget
Tags: bash curl function xkcd comic webcomic
0
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Down
View the newest xkcd comic.

This function displays the latest comic from xkcd.com. One of the best things about xkcd is the title text when you hover over the comic, so this function also displays that after you close the comic.

To get a random xkcd comic use the following:

xkcdrandom() { wget -qO- http://dynamic.xkcd.com/comic/random | sed -n 's#^<img src="\(http://imgs.[^"]\+\)"\s\+title="\(.\+\?\)"\salt.\+$#eog "\1"\necho '"'\2'#p" | bash; }

These are just a bit shorter than the ones eigthmillion wrote, however his version didn't work as expected on my laptop for some reason (I got the title-tag first), so these build a command which is executed by bash.

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