All commands

All commands (14,187)

sorted by

Replaces every ocurrences of 'old' for 'new' in all files specified

Replaces every ocurrence of 'old' for 'new' in all files specified. After the 'i' char you can put a '~' or whatever to create a backup file for each replaced with the name equal to the original plus character.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

perl -i -pe "s/old/new/g" *

pandres · 2009-02-05 12:07:27 66
cycle through a 256 colour palette

just for fun
This is sample output - yours may be different.
14

yes "$(seq 232 255;seq 254 -1 233)" | while read i; do printf "\x1b[48;5;${i}m\n"; sleep .01; done

pixelbeat · 2009-02-05 12:01:37 25
Serve current directory tree at http://$HOSTNAME:8000/
This is sample output - yours may be different.
846

python -m SimpleHTTPServer

pixelbeat · 2009-02-05 11:57:43 145
Shows the largest files in your archives
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

tar -tvjf backup.tar.bz2 | sort -nrk 3 | head

Sekenre · 2009-02-05 11:57:18 89
Remove invalid host keys from ~/.ssh/known_hosts

Useful if you have to tunnel ssh through a local port and it complains of the host key being different. Much easier than manually editing the file.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
9

ssh-keygen -R \[localhost\]:8022

Sekenre · 2009-02-05 11:48:09 113
find all processes named hunger and force kill, minus the grep itself and output to a file called fu.bar
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-3

ps -auwx|egrep hunger|grep -v grep| awk '{print "kill -9",$1}' > ~/fu.bar

lendellray · 2009-02-05 11:43:38 30
rgrep: recursive grep without .svn

Only excludes .svn from filenames. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
[nf@dev ~/css]$ rgrep sprites
./template.php:require "css_sprites.php";
./template.php: $abs_path.'/sprites/',
./template.php: 'sprites.css',
./template.php:include 'sprites.css';
```
2

alias rgrep="find . $ ! -name .svn -o -prune $ -type f -print0 | xargs -0 grep"

nf · 2009-02-05 11:23:23 34
Get the 10 biggest files/folders for the current direcotry
This is sample output - yours may be different.
51

du -s * | sort -n | tail

bambambazooka · 2009-02-05 11:18:43 33
Start urxvt and do whatever is needed to open the screen session named "main"

Open a terminal (urxvt in this case) to connect to a screen session (named "main") and create the screen session if necessary.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

screen -ls | grep main && urxvt -name screen -e screen -x main || urxvt -name screen -e screen -R -S main

trey · 2009-02-05 10:51:31 191
SSH to a machine's internet address if it is not present on your local network

Ping machine once, waiting 1 second for response until failing. Upon fail, ssh globally, otherwise ssh locally.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1

ping localip -c 1 -W 1 &> /dev/null && ssh localip || ssh globalip

trey · 2009-02-05 10:40:26 524
search the manual page names and descriptions
This is sample output - yours may be different.
2

apropos somekeyword

chrisdrew · 2009-02-05 10:29:15 57
locate bin, src, and man file for a command
This is sample output - yours may be different.
4

whereis somecommand

chrisdrew · 2009-02-05 10:29:10 743
locate a command

Returns the pathnames of the files which would be executed in the current environment had its arguments been given as a command.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

which somecommand

chrisdrew · 2009-02-05 10:29:04 41
Search through files, ignoring .svn

Variant of find grep that ignores files with .svn in the name. Useful for searching through a local repository of source code.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-2

find . -type f -print0 | grep -vzZ '.svn' | xargs -0 grep --color -nEHi "SEARCHTERM"

troelskn · 2009-02-05 10:27:15 39
cd canonical (resolve any symlinks)
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-1

alias cdc='cd `pwd -P`'

adavies42 · 2009-02-05 10:15:11 36
ring the bell
This is sample output - yours may be different.
3

alias beep='echo -en "\007"'

adavies42 · 2009-02-05 10:14:24 33
get a directory from one machine to another using tar and ssh
This is sample output - yours may be different.
3

ssh somemachine "cd some dir; tar zcpf - somedirname" |tar zxpf -

mischamolhoek · 2009-02-05 09:10:56 30
A nice command for summarising repeated information
This is sample output - yours may be different.
4

alias counts=sort | uniq -c | sort -nr

porges · 2009-02-05 08:24:02 519
Rip audio from a video file.

Replace and accordingly.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
68

mplayer -ao pcm -vo null -vc dummy -dumpaudio -dumpfile <output-file> <input-file>

sykora · 2009-02-05 08:17:04 40
diff two unsorted files without creating temporary files

bash/ksh subshell redirection (as file descriptors) used as input to diff
This is sample output - yours may be different.
100

diff <(sort file1) <(sort file2)

systemj · 2009-02-04 22:20:13 502
Run a command only when load average is below a certain threshold

Good for one off jobs that you want to run at a quiet time. The default threshold is a load average of 0.8 but this can be set using atrun. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
job 6 at 2009-02-04 19:03
```
45

echo "rm -rf /unwanted-but-large/folder" | batch

root · 2009-02-04 19:07:52 45
Get the full path to a file

Useful in scripts when the file is passed in as an argument. Eg. filepath=$(realpath $1) Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
/full/path/to/examplefile.txt
```
7

realpath examplefile.txt

root · 2009-02-04 15:41:44 46
Compare a remote file with a local file

Useful for checking if there are differences between local and remote files.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
176

ssh user@host cat /path/to/remotefile | diff /path/to/localfile -

root · 2009-02-04 11:33:19 79

Search gzipped files

This decompresses the file and sends the output to STDOUT so it can be grepped. A good one to put in loops for searching directories of gzipped files, such as man pages. Show Sample Output

-7

zcat /usr/share/man/man1/grep.1.gz | grep "color"

root · 2009-02-04 09:38:45 54

Display all readline binding that use CTRL

Useful for getting to know the available keyboard shortcuts. Show Sample Output

bind -p | grep -F "\C"

root · 2009-02-03 16:22:14 57

‹ First < 564 565 566 567 568 >

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

Insert the last argument of the previous command

for example if you did a: $ ls -la /bin/ls then $ ls !$ is equivalent to doing a $ ls /bin/ls

Use QEMU to create a hardware dual-boot without rebooting

After downloading an ISO image, assuming you have QEMU installed, it’s possible to boot an ISO image in a virtual machine and then install that ISO from within the virtual machine directly to a physical drive, bypassing the need to reboot. Simply pass the ISO image as the -cdrom parameter, followed by “format=raw,file=/dev/sdb” (replace /dev/sdb with the drive you want to install to) as the hard drive parameter (making absolutely certain to specify the raw format, of course). Once you boot into the ISO image with QEMU, just run the installer as if it were a virtual machine — it’ll just use the physical device as an install target. After that, you’ll be able to seamlessly boot multiple distros (or even other operating systems) at once.

Apply an xdelta patch to a file

xdelta is a command line program for delta encoding, which generates the difference between two files. This is similar to diff and patch, but it is targeted for binary files and does not generate human readable output. http://xdelta.org/

Search for a string inside all files in the current directory

options: -n line nbrs, -i ignore case, -s no "doesn't exist", -I ignore binary args: * for all files of current dir (not hidden), .[!.]* for all hidden files I don't include by default the -R (recursive) option, which is not always useful. You add it by hand when needed.

Get current Xorg resolution via xrandr

a find and replace within text-based files, to locate and rewrite text en mass.

syntax follows regular command line expression. example: let's say you have a directory (with subdirs) that has say 4000 .php files. All of these files were made via script, but uh-oh, there was a typo! if the typo is "let's go jome!" but you meant it to say "let's go home!" find . -name "*.php" | xargs perl -pi -e "s/let\'s\ go\ jome\!/let\'s\ go\ home\!/g" all better :) multiline: find . -name "*.php" | xargs perl -p0777i -e 's/knownline1\nknownline2/replaced/m' indescriminate line replace: find ./ -name '*.php' | xargs perl -pi -e 's/\".*$\"/\new\ line\ content/g'

Null a file with sudo

pop-up messages on a remote computer

Run this command when you are physically at the computer you wish to send pop-up messages to. Then when you ssh in to it, you can do this: echo "guess who?" > commander guess who? will then pop up on the screen for a few moments, then disappear. You will need to create the commander file first. I mess with my wife all the time with this. i.e. echo "You have given the computer a virus. Computer will be rendered useless in 10 seconds." > commander lol

Make vim open in tabs by default (save to .profile)

I always add this to my .profile rc so I can do things like: "vim *.c" and the files are opened in tabs.

Set access and modification timestamps of a file using another one as reference

atime and mtime timestamps of $FILE2 is changed according to the ones of $FILE1. If $FILE2 doesn't exist is created.

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)

All commands (14,187) 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…

All commands (14,187)

sorted by