All commands (14,187)

  • it does provide much more information , the owner , group , the size in byte , and the last modified time a file or directory was ls -al : list all in long format Show Sample Output


    -11
    ls -al
    eastwind · 2009-11-12 12:27:32 6
  • this is a reference to Antoine de St. Exupery's "The Little Prince" Show Sample Output


    6
    aptitude moo
    eastwind · 2009-11-12 12:24:01 7
  • Watch a TiVo file on your computer.


    0
    curl -s -c /tmp/cookie -k -u tivo:$MAK --digest http://$tivo/download/$filename | tivodecode -m $MAK -- - | mplayer - -cache-min 50 -cache 65536
    matthewbauer · 2009-11-11 23:32:23 3

  • 9
    setterm -powersave off -blank 0
    unixmonkey6999 · 2009-11-11 22:39:50 4
  • trying to copy all your dotfiles from one location to another, this may help Show Sample Output


    -2
    ls -a | egrep "^\.\w"
    kulor · 2009-11-11 18:19:56 12
  • cd to the folder containing the wav files and convert them all to ogg format. in my sample output i use the -a and -l flags to set the author and album title. to get the oggenc program in ubuntu linux run: sudo apt-get install oggenc Show Sample Output


    2
    oggenc *.wav
    nickleus · 2009-11-11 14:26:01 6
  • cd to the folder containing the wav files, then convert them all to flac. yeah baby! in ubuntu, to get the flac program just: sudo apt-get install flac flac file input formats are wav, aiff, raw, flac, oga and ogg Show Sample Output


    3
    flac --best *.wav
    nickleus · 2009-11-11 14:17:24 9

  • -1
    for i in `cat /etc/passwd | awk -F : '{ print $1 }';`; do passwd -e $i; done
    irraz · 2009-11-11 13:01:22 3
  • Create a tar file in multiple parts if it's to large for a single disk, your filesystem, etc. Rejoin later with `cat .tar.*|tar xf -` Show Sample Output


    17
    tar cf - <dir>|split -b<max_size>M - <name>.tar.
    dinomite · 2009-11-11 01:53:33 5
  • The magic is performed by the parameter -t Show Sample Output


    -2
    for F in $(find ./ -name "*.tgz") ; do tar -tvzf $F ; done
    alchandia · 2009-11-11 00:50:52 3
  • 355 # from zsh-users 356 edit_command_line () { 357 # edit current line in $EDITOR 358 local tmpfile=${TMPPREFIX:-/tmp/zsh}ecl$$ 359 360 print -R - "$PREBUFFER$BUFFER" >$tmpfile 361 exec 362 ${VISUAL:-${EDITOR:-vi}} $tmpfile 363 zle kill-buffer 364 BUFFER=${"$( 365 CURSOR=$#BUFFER 366 367 command rm -f $tmpfile 368 zle redisplay 369 } 370 zle -N edit_command_line


    -2
    zsh$ M-v
    bucciarati · 2009-11-10 23:02:56 11

  • -3
    dd if=/dev/<device location> | gzip -c /<path to backup location>/<disk image name>.img.gz
    awjrichards · 2009-11-10 22:57:51 9
  • The pstack command prints a stack trace of running processes without needing to attach a debugger, but what about core files? The answer, of course, is to use this command. Usage: gdbbt program corefile


    3
    alias gdbbt="gdb -q -n -ex bt -batch"
    TeacherTiger · 2009-11-10 22:56:59 658
  • I don't know if you've used sqsh before. But it has a handy feature that allows you to switch into vim to complete editing of whatever complicated SQL statement you are trying to run. But I got to thinking -- why doesn't bash have that? Well, it does. It's called '|'! Jk. Seriously, I'm pretty sure this flow of commands will revolutionize how I administer files. And b/c everything is a file on *nx based distros, well, it's handy. First, if your ls is aliased to ls --color=auto, then create another alias in your .bashrc: alias lsp='ls --color=none' Now, let's say you want to rename all files that begin with the prefix 'ras' to files that begin with a 'raster' prefix. You could do it with some bash substitution. But who remembers that? I remember vim macros because I can remember to press 'qa' and how to move around in vim. Plus, it's more incremental. You can check things along the way. That is the secret to development and probably the universe. So type something like: lsp | grep ras Are those all the files you need to move? If not, modify and re-grep. If so, pipe it to vim. lsp | grep ras | vim - Now run your vim macros to modify the first line. Assuming you use 'w' and 'b' to move around, etc., it should work for all lines. Hold down '@@', etc., until your list of files has been modified from ras_a.h ras_a.cpp ras_b.h ras_b.cpp to: mv ras_a.h raster_a.h mv ras_a.cpp raster_a.cpp mv ras_b.h raster_b.h mv ras_b.h raster_b.cpp then run :%!bash then run :q! then be like, whaaaaa? as you realize your workflow got a little more continuous. maybe. YMMV.


    -3
    vim -
    tmsh · 2009-11-10 22:25:36 12
  • This script creates date based backups of the files. It copies the files to the same place the original ones are but with an additional extension that is the timestamp of the copy on the following format: YearMonthDay-HourMinuteSecond Show Sample Output


    6
    backup() { for i in "$@"; do cp -va $i $i.$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M%S); done }
    polaco · 2009-11-10 20:59:45 6
  • This script will list all the files in the tarballs present on any folder or subfolder of the provided path. The while loop is for echoing the file name of the tarball before listing the files, so the tarball can be identified


    -2
    find <path> -name "*.tgz" -or -name "*.tar.gz" | while read file; do echo "$file: "; tar -tzf $file; done
    polaco · 2009-11-10 20:39:04 36
  • This command will copy a folder tree (keeping the parent folders) through ssh. It will: - compress the data - stream the compressed data through ssh - decompress the data on the local folder This command will take no additional space on the host machine (no need to create compressed tar files, transfer it and then delete it on the host). There is some situations (like mirroring a remote machine) where you simply cant wait for a huge time taking scp command or cant compress the data to a tarball on the host because of file system space limitation, so this command can do the job quite well. This command performs very well mainly when a lot of data is involved in the process. If you copying a low amount of data, use scp instead (easier to type) Show Sample Output


    12
    ssh <host> 'tar -cz /<folder>/<subfolder>' | tar -xvz
    polaco · 2009-11-10 20:06:47 8

  • 0
    egrep -v "^[[:blank:]]*($|#|//|/\*| \*|\*/)" somefile
    sdadh01 · 2009-11-10 18:49:19 5
  • Find files recursively that were updated in the last hour ignoring SVN files and folders. Incase you do a full svn up on accident.


    2
    find . -mmin -60 -not -path "*svn*" -print|more
    bloodykis · 2009-11-10 18:34:53 7
  • Strips comments from at least bash and php scripts. Normal # and // as well as php block comments removes all of the: empty/blank lines lines beginning with # lines beginning with // lines beginning with /* lines beginning with a space and then * lines beginning with */ It also deletes the lines if there's whitespace before any of the above. Add an alias to use in .bashrc like this: alias stripcomments="sed -e '/^[[:blank:]]*#/d; s/[[:blank:]][[:blank:]]*#.*//' -e '/^$/d' -e '/^\/\/.*/d' -e '/^\/\*/d;/^ \* /d;/^ \*\//d'"


    -3
    sed -e '/^[[:blank:]]*#/d; s/[[:blank:]][[:blank:]]*#.*//' -e '/^$/d' -e '/^\/\/.*/d' -e '/^\/\*/d;/^ \* /d;/^ \*\//d' /a/file/with/comments
    unixmonkey6951 · 2009-11-10 17:47:22 10
  • The legend in the first column: i = installed p = installable Show Sample Output


    -6
    aptitude search NAME
    CafeNinja · 2009-11-10 11:23:18 5
  • The command as given would create the file "/result_path/result.tar.gz" with the contents of the target folder including permissions and sub- folder structure. Show Sample Output


    0
    tar pzcvf /result_path/result.tar.gz /target_path/target_folder
    CafeNinja · 2009-11-10 11:17:00 5
  • will decode a mime message. usefull when you receive some email and file attachment that cant be read.


    3
    munpack file.txt
    Diceroll · 2009-11-10 10:53:49 4
  • search ubuntu's remote package source repositories for a specific program to see which package contains it Show Sample Output


    7
    apt-file find bin/programname
    nickleus · 2009-11-10 10:21:45 6
  • require the pdftk package


    8
    pdftk 1.pdf 2.pdf 3.pdf cat output 123.pdf
    eastwind · 2009-11-10 10:07:37 4
  • ‹ First  < 428 429 430 431 432 >  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

Define shell variable HISTIGNORE so that comments (lines starting with #) appear in shell history
I was surprised to find that with RedHat bash, I could not find any comment lines (begining with #) in my bash shell history. Surprised because in Mageia Linux this works. It turns out that RedHat's bash will keep comment lines if in my .bashrc, I define: export HISTIGNORE=' cd "`*: PROMPT_COMMAND=?*?' Why have comment lines in shell history? It's a handy and convenient way to make proto-commands (to be completed later) and for storing brief text data that is searchable in shell history.

Use find to get around Argument list too long problem
Can be used for other commands as well, replace rm with ls. It is easy to make this shorter but if the filenames involved have spaces, you will need to do use find's "-print0" option in conjunction with xargs's "-0" option. Otherwise the shell that xargs uses to execute the "rm" command line will treat the space as a token separator, thereby treating the name as two (or more) names.

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

Retrieve the size of a file on a server
Downloads the entire file, but http servers don't always provide the optional 'Content-Length:' header, and ftp/gopher/dict/etc servers don't provide a filesize header at all.

Sort all running processes by their memory & CPU usage
you can also pipe it to "tail" command to show 10 most memory using processes.

Create POSIX tar archive
tar(1) and cpio(1) are not fully platform agnostic, although their file formats are specified in POSIX.1-2001. As such, GNU tar(1) might not be able to extract a BSD tar(1) archive, and ivce versa. pax(1) is defined in POSIX.1-2001. To extract an archive: $ pax -rf archive.tar

BourneShell: Go to previous directory
cd - would return to the previous directory of your cd command. NB: previous dir is always stored in $OLDPWD variable.

Copy a file using dd and watch its progress
This is a more accurate way to watch the progress of a dd process. The $DDPID=$! is needed so that you don't get the PID of the sleep. The sleep 1 is needed because in my testing at least, if you run kill -USR1 against dd too quickly, it will kill it off instead of display the status. So you need to wait a second, probably so that it can configure itself to trap the USR1 signal.

Find files with size over 100MB and output with better lay-out

Convert all Flac in a directory to Mp3 using maximum quality variable bitrate


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: