Run the alias command, then issue ps aux | head and resize your terminal window (putty/console/hyperterm/xterm/etc) then issue the same command and you'll understand. ${LINES:-`tput lines 2>/dev/null||echo -n 12`} Insructs the shell that if LINES is not set or null to use the output from `tput lines` ( ncurses based terminal access ) to get the number of lines in your terminal. But furthermore, in case that doesn't work either, it will default to using the deafault of 12 (-2 = 10). The default for HEAD is to output the first 10 lines, this alias changes the default to output the first x lines instead, where x is the number of lines currently displayed on your terminal - 2. The -2 is there so that the top line displayed is the command you ran that used HEAD, ie the prompt. Depending on whether your PS1 and/or PROMPT_COMMAND output more than 1 line (mine is 3) you will want to increase from -2. So with my prompt being the following, I need -7, or - 5 if I only want to display the commandline at the top. ( https://www.askapache.com/linux/bash-power-prompt/ ) 275MB/748MB [7995:7993 - 0:186] 06:26:49 Thu Apr 08 [askapache@n1-backbone5:/dev/pts/0 +1] ~ In most shells the LINES variable is created automatically at login and updated when the terminal is resized (28 linux, 23/20 others for SIGWINCH) to contain the number of vertical lines that can fit in your terminal window. Because the alias doesn't hard-code the current LINES but relys on the $LINES variable, this is a dynamic alias that will always work on a tty device. Show Sample Output

substrings a variable starting at position. If no offset given prints rest of the line Show Sample Output

Use `sysctl -p` without argument will only load /etc/sysctl.conf, but user configs always put in /etc/sysctl.d/*.conf, `sysctl --system` will load all the config files

Also resolves symlinks, showing the full path of the link target

This uses some tricks I found while reading the bash man page to enumerate and display all the current environment variables, including those not listed by the 'env' command which according to the bash docs are more for internal use by BASH. The main trick is the way bash will list all environment variable names when performing expansion on ${!A*}. Then the eval builtin makes it work in a loop. I created a function for this and use it instead of env. (by aliasing env). This is the function that given any parameters lists the variables that start with it. So 'aae B' would list all env variables starting wit B. And 'aae {A..Z} {a..z}' would list all variables starting with any letter of the alphabet. And 'aae TERM' would list all variables starting with TERM. aae(){ local __a __i __z;for __a in "$@";do __z=\${!${__a}*};for __i in `eval echo "${__z}"`;do echo -e "$__i: ${!__i}";done;done; } And my printenv replacement is: alias env='aae {A..Z} {a..z} "_"|sort|cat -v 2>&1 | sed "s/\\^\\[/\\\\033/g"' From: http://www.askapache.com/linux-unix/bash_profile-functions-advanced-shell.html Show Sample Output

Will use variable value (for variable $my_dir, in this case), an assign a default value if there is none. Show Sample Output

Run the alias command, then issue ps aux | tail and resize your terminal window (putty/console/hyperterm/xterm/etc) then issue the same command and you'll understand. ${LINES:-`tput lines 2>/dev/null||echo -n 12`} Insructs the shell that if LINES is not set or null to use the output from `tput lines` ( ncurses based terminal access ) to get the number of lines in your terminal. But furthermore, in case that doesn't work either, it will default to using the default of 80. The default for TAIL is to output the last 10 lines, this alias changes the default to output the last x lines instead, where x is the number of lines currently displayed on your terminal - 7. The -7 is there so that the top line displayed is the command you ran that used TAIL, ie the prompt. Depending on whether your PS1 and/or PROMPT_COMMAND output more than 1 line (mine is 3) you will want to increase from -2. So with my prompt being the following, I need -7, or - 5 if I only want to display the commandline at the top. ( http://www.askapache.com/linux/bash-power-prompt.html ) 275MB/748MB [7995:7993 - 0:186] 06:26:49 Thu Apr 08 [askapache@n1-backbone5:/dev/pts/0 +1] ~ In most shells the LINES variable is created automatically at login and updated when the terminal is resized (28 linux, 23/20 others for SIGWINCH) to contain the number of vertical lines that can fit in your terminal window. Because the alias doesn't hard-code the current LINES but relys on the $LINES variable, this is a dynamic alias that will always work on a tty device. Show Sample Output

Reload all defined kernel variables from /etc/sysctl.conf(if no parameter after -p is given) without the old myth "Ah, you'll need to reboot to apply those variables"... Show Sample Output

See "Parameter Expansion" in the bash manpage. They refer to this as "Use Alternate Value", but we're including the var in the at alternative. Show Sample Output

You define your variable MYVAR with the desired search pattern: MYVAR= ...which can then be searched with the find command. This is useful if you in a script, where you want the arguments to be fed into the find command. The provided search is case insensitive (-iname) and will find all files and directories with the pattern MYVAR (not exact matches). This may go without saying, but if you want exact matches remove the \* and if you want case sensitive, use the -name argument.

This works fine too.

Sometimes you need the full path to your script, regardless of how it was executed (which starting directory) in order to maintain other relative paths in the script. If you attempt to just use something simple like: STARTING_DIR="${0%/*}" you will only get the relative path depending on where you first executed the script from. You can get the relative path to the script (from your starting point) by using dirname, but you actually have to change directories and print the working directory to get the absolute full path. Show Sample Output

Since none of the systems I work on have readlink, this works cross-platform (everywhere has perl, right?). Note: This will resolve links. Show Sample Output

Good for use in your ~/.bash_profile or a script. Show Sample Output

minimal oneliner to keep track of time Show Sample Output

Normally executing 'set' returns a vast amount of information, including the source code of every function and variable within the environment - including those that are part of the shell. By using the -o posix argument, bash runs temporarily in POSIX mode for this command, which simplifies expressions and leaves out the shell's own functions and definitions - leaving a much smaller, more useful list. Show Sample Output

work for execute file

tail() { thbin="/usr/bin/tail"; if [ "${1:0:1}" != "-" ]; then fc=$(($#==0?1:$#)); lpf="$((($LINES - 3 - 2 * $fc) / $fc))"; lpf="$(($lpf<1?2:$lpf))"; [ $fc -eq 1 ] && $thbin -n $lpf "$@" | /usr/bin/fold -w $COLUMNS | $thbin -n $lpf || $thbin -n $lpf "$@"; else $thbin "$@"; fi; unset lpf fc thbin; } This is a function that implements an improved version of tail. It tries to limit the number of lines so that the screen is filled completely. It works with pipes, single and multiple files. If you add different options to tail, they will overwrite the settings from the function. It doesn't work very well when too many files (with wrapped lines) are specified. Its optimised for my three-line prompt. It also works for head. Just s/tail/head/g Don't set 'thbin="tail"', this might lead to a forkbomb.

Consider the following simple situation [ reading something using while and read ] [See script 1 in sample output] --------------------------------------------------- The variable var is assigned with "nullll" at first. Inside the while loop [piped while] it is assigned with "whillleeee". [Onlly 2 assignments stmts]. Outside the loop the last assigned value for "var" [and no variable] inside the while can't be accessed [Due to pipe, var is executed in a sub shell]. In these type of situation variables can be accessed by modifying as follows. [See script 2 in sample output] ___________________________ Vary helpful when reading a set of items, say file names, stored on a file [or variable] to an array an use it later. Is there any other way 2 access variables inside and outside the loop ?? Show Sample Output