Commands by GeckoDH (7)

  • append content of a file to itself

    The command `cat file >> file` failes with the following error message: cat: file: input file is output file `tee` is a nice workaround without using any temporary files. Show Sample Output


    0
    cat file | tee >> file
    GeckoDH · 2009-07-30 07:34:03 3
  • Break lines after, for example 78 characters, but don't break within a word/string

    Per default, linux/unix shells are configured with a width of 80 characters. If you like to edit a phrase or string on a line with more than 80 characters it might take long to go there (for example a line with 1000 characters and you like to edit the 98th word which is character 598-603). Maybe you might wish to use 78 characters, because if you forward the text via mail and the text will be quoted (2 extra characters at the beginning to the line "> "), you use 80 characters, otherwise 82, which are lame.


    3
    fold -w 78 -s file-to-wrap
    GeckoDH · 2009-05-19 19:33:10 1
  • Share a 'screen'-session

    Ater person A starts his screen-session with `screen`, person B can attach to the srceen of person A with `screen -x`. Good to know, if you need or give support from/to others.


    13
    screen -x
    GeckoDH · 2009-05-19 19:10:52 2
  • Backup your OpenWRT config (only the config, not the whole system)

    You only have to fill in your administrative account and password, and the router FQDN! I recommand to execute this command not over the internet, because there is no encryption (the username and password will be transmitted in plaintext!)


    3
    curl -d 'username=root&password=your-good-password' "http://router/cgi-bin/luci/admin/system/backup?backup=kthxbye" > `date +%Y%d%m`_config_backup.tgz
    GeckoDH · 2009-05-19 11:32:30 1
  • Create variables from a list of names

    VARNAMES='ID FORENAME LASTNAME ADDRESS CITY PHONE MOBILE MAIL ...' cat customer.csv | while read LINE ; do COUNT=1 for VAR in $VARNAMES ; do eval "${VAR}=`echo $LINE | /usr/bin/awk {'print $'$COUNT''}`" let COUNT=COUNT+1 done done Maybe you have a CSV-File with addresses, where you have to process each contact (one per line, write each value to own variable). Of course you can define every variable, but this way is more simple and faster (to write). VARNAMES includes the variable names. Pay attention: the number of names in VARNAMES have to be the same than in the CSV-file the fields. If the CSV is not seperated with ";", you can set the seperator after the awk-binary with -F"_" for example.


    -1
    VARNAMES='ID FORENAME LASTNAME ADDRESS CITY PHONE MOBILE MAIL' ; cat customer.csv | while read LINE ; do COUNT=1 ; for VAR in $VARNAMES ; do eval "${VAR}=`echo $LINE | /usr/bin/awk {'print $'$COUNT''}`" ; let COUNT=COUNT+1 ; done ; done
    GeckoDH · 2009-05-19 11:23:00 0
  • Backup with SSH in a archive

    PRIVATEKEY - Of course the full path to the private key \n HOST - The host where to get the backup \n SOURCE - The directory you wish to backup \n DESTINATION - The destination for the backup on your local machine


    1
    ssh -i $PRIVATEKEY $HOST -C 'cd $SOURCE; tar -cz --numeric-owner .' | tee $DESTINATION/backup.tgz | tar -tz
    GeckoDH · 2009-05-18 20:36:45 0
  • Validate date, also a date within a leap year

    Important to know: a valid date will return 0, otherwise 1!


    2
    date -d2009-05-18 > /dev/null 2>&1 ; echo $?
    GeckoDH · 2009-05-18 20:30:05 0

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Copy specific files recursively using the same tree organization.
This command has been used to overwrite corrupted "entries" files of a corrupted subversion working copy. Note the --files-from input format.

Rename files in batch

Swap a file or dir with quick resotre
This lets you replace a file or directory and quickly revert if something goes wrong. For example, the current version of a website's files are in public_html. Put a new version of the site in public_html~ and execute the command. The names are swapped. If anything goes wrong, execute it again (up arrow or !!).

scheduled jobs

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.

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

Turn shell tracing and verbosity (set -xv) on/off with 1 command!
Running this command turns shell tracing and shell verbose debugging on or off. Not only does it do that, it also uses your terminals builtin method of setting colors to make debugging much easier. It looks at the current shell options contained in the $- special bash variable and that lets this function set the opposite of the current value. So from the shell you could do a: $ setx; echo "y" | ( cat -t ) | echo "d"; setx and it will turn on debbuggin. This is an amazingly useful function that is perfect to add system-wide by adding it to /etc/profile or /etc/bashrc.. You can run it from the shell, and you can also use it in your shell scripts like my .bash_profile - http://www.askapache.com/linux-unix/bash_profile-functions-advanced-shell.html

Calculate days on which Friday the 13th occurs (inspired from the work of the user justsomeguy)
Friday is the 5th day of the week, monday is the 1st. Output may be affected by locale.

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" }

Sort content of a directory including hidden files.
This command sorts the content including hidden files in human readable format of the current directory.

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