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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.

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Convert CSV to JSON
Replace 'csv_file.csv' with your filename.

Execute a command with a timeout
In this example the command "somecommand" will be executed and sent a SIGALARM signal if it runs for more than 10 seconds. It uses the perl alarm function. It's not 100% accurate on timing, but close enough. I found this really useful when executing scripts and commands that I knew might hang E.g. ones that connect to services that might not be running. Importantly this can be used within a sequential script. The command will not release control until either the command completes or the timeout is hit.

Erase empty files
The command find search commands with size zero and erase them.

chmod - change file permissions of a file to be similar of another

List of all vim features
The above output is for a custom compiled version of Vim on Arch Linux. Just a quick shell one liner, and presents a list of all the enabled and disabled (those prefixed with a '-') features.

Sets shell timeout
Useful in root's .profile - will auto-logout after TMOUT seconds of inactivity. Close after `seconds` inactive. export TMOUT=seconds (unefunge)

Execute a file in vim with the #!/bin/interpreter in the first line

List processes playing sound
When trying to play a sound you may sometimes get an error saying that your sound card is already used, but not by what process. This will list all processes playing sound, useful to kill processes that you no longer need but that keep using your sound card.

Ping all hosts on 192.168.1.0/24

Get size of terminal
See the cols and lines and make sure the console it correctly configured for the screen size.


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