defines a handy function for quick calculations from cli. once defined: ? 10*2+3 Show Sample Output

How often do you make a directory (or series of directories) and then change into it to do whatever? 99% of the time that is what I do. This BASH function 'md' will make the directory path then immediately change to the new directory. By using the 'mkdir -p' switch, the intermediate directories are created as well if they do not exist. Show Sample Output

This function displays the latest comic from xkcd.com. One of the best things about xkcd is the title text when you hover over the comic, so this function also displays that after you close the comic. To get a random xkcd comic, I also use the following: xkcdrandom(){ wget -qO- dynamic.xkcd.com/comic/random|tee >(feh $(grep -Po '(?<=")http://imgs[^/]+/comics/[^"]+\.\w{3}'))|grep -Po '(?<=(\w{3})" title=").*(?=" alt)';}

This command lets you select from 10 different BBC stations. When one is chosen, it streams it with mplayer. Requires: mplayer with wma support.

This function takes a word or a phrase as arguments and then fetches definitions using Google's "define" syntax. The "nl" and perl portion isn't strictly necessary. It just makes the output a bit more readable, but this also works: define(){ local y="$@";curl -sA"Opera" "http://www.google.com/search?q=define:${y// /+}"|grep -Po '(?<=<li>)[^<]+';} If your version of grep doesn't have perl compatible regex support, then you can use this version: define(){ local y="$@";curl -sA"Opera" "http://www.google.com/search?q=define:${y// /+}"|grep -Eo '<li>[^<]+'|sed 's/<li>//g'|nl|perl -MHTML::Entities -pe 'decode_entities($_)' 2>/dev/null;} Show Sample Output

A function for streaming youtube to mplayer. The option "-g" for youtube-dl tells it to output the direct video URL, instead of downloading the video. "-fs" tells MPlayer to go FullScreen, and "-quit" makes it less verbose. Requires: youdube-dl ( http://bitbucket.org/rg3/youtube-dl/ ) (Tested in zsh) Show Sample Output

Very useful in shell scripts because you can run a task nicely in the background using job-control and output progress until it completes. Here's an example of how I use it in backup scripts to run gpg in the background to encrypt an archive file (which I create in this same way). $! is the process ID of the last run command, which is saved here as the variable PI, then sleeper is called with the process id of the gpg task (PI), and sleeper is also specified to output : instead of the default . every 3 seconds instead of the default 1. So a shorter version would be sleeper $!; The wait is also used here, though it may not be needed on your system. echo ">>> ENCRYPTING SQL BACKUP" gpg --output archive.tgz.asc --encrypt archive.tgz 1>/dev/null & PI=$!; sleeper $PI ":" 3; wait $PI && rm archive.tgz &>/dev/null Previously to get around the $! not always being available, I would instead check for the existance of the process ID by checking if the directory /proc/$PID existed, but not everyone uses proc anymore. That version is currently the one at http://www.askapache.com/linux-unix/bash_profile-functions-advanced-shell.html but I plan on upgrading to this new version soon. Show Sample Output

ps and grep is a dangerous combination -- grep tries to match everything on each line (thus the all too common: grep -v grep hack). ps -C doesn't use grep, it uses the process table for an exact match. Thus, you'll get an accurate list with: ps -fC sh rather finding every process with sh somewhere on the line. Show Sample Output

This is a command that I find myself using all the time. It works like regular grep, but returns the paragraph containing the search pattern instead of just the line. It operates on files or standard input. grepp <PATTERN> <FILE> or <SOMECOMMAND> | grepp <PATTERN> Show Sample Output

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2625783/listing-defined-functions-in-bash#2627461

This Anti-TarBomb function makes it easy to unpack a .tar.gz without worrying about the possibility that it will "explode" in your current directory. I've usually always created a temporary folder in which I extracted the tarball first, but I got tired of having to reorganize the files afterwards. Just add this function to your .zshrc / .bashrc and use it like this; atb arch1.tar.gz and it will create a folder for the extracted files, if they aren't already in a single folder. This only works for .tar.gz, but it's very easy to edit the function to suit your needs, if you want to extract .tgz, .tar.bz2 or just .tar. More info about tarbombs at http://www.linfo.org/tarbomb.html Tested in zsh and bash. UPDATE: This function works for .tar.gz, .tar.bz2, .tgz, .tbz and .tar in zsh (not working in bash): atb() { l=$(tar tf $1); if [ $(echo "$l" | wc -l) -eq $(echo "$l" | grep $(echo "$l" | head -n1) | wc -l) ]; then tar xf $1; else mkdir ${1%.t(ar.gz||ar.bz2||gz||bz||ar)} && tar xf $1 -C ${1%.t(ar.gz||ar.bz2||gz||bz||ar)}; fi ;} UPDATE2: From the comments; bepaald came with a variant that works for .tar.gz, .tar.bz2, .tgz, .tbz and .tar in bash: atb() {shopt -s extglob ; l=$(tar tf $1); if [ $(echo "$l" | wc -l) -eq $(echo "$l" | grep $(echo "$l" | head -n1) | wc -l) ]; then tar xf $1; else mkdir ${1%.t@(ar.gz|ar.bz2|gz|bz|ar)} && tar xf $1 -C ${1%.t@(ar.gz|ar.bz2|gz|bz|ar)}; fi ; shopt -u extglob} Show Sample Output

I love this function because it tells me everything I want to know about files, more than stat, more than ls. It's very useful and infinitely expandable. find $PWD -maxdepth 1 -printf '%.5m %10M %#9u:%-9g %#5U:%-5G [%AD | %TD | %CD] [%Y] %p\n' | sort -rgbS 50% 00761 drwxrw---x askapache:askapache 777:666 [06/10/10 | 06/10/10 | 06/10/10] [d] /web/cg/tmp The key is: # -printf '%.5m %10M %#9u:%-9g %#5U:%-5G [%AD | %TD | %CD] [%Y] %p\n' which believe it or not took me hundreds of tweaking before I was happy with the output. You can easily use this within a function to do whatever you want.. This simple function works recursively if you call it with -r as an argument, and sorts by file permissions. lsl(){ O="-maxdepth 1";sed -n '/-r/!Q1'<<<$@ &&O=;find $PWD $O -printf '%.5m %10M %#9u:%-9g %#5U:%-5G [%AD | %TD | %CD] [%Y] %p\n'|sort -rgbS 50%; } Personally I'm using this function because: lll () { local a KS="1 -r -g"; sed -n '/-sort=/!Q1' <<< $@ && KS=`sed 's/.*-sort=\(.*\)/\1/g'<<<$@`; find $PWD -maxdepth 1 -printf '%.5m %10M %#9u:%-9g %#5U:%-5G [%AD | %TD | %CD] [%Y] %p\n'|sort -k$KS -bS 50%; } # i can sort by user lll -sort=3 # or sort by group reversed lll -sort=4 -r # and sort by modification time lll -sort=6 If anyone wants to help me make this function handle multiple dirs/files like ls, go for it and I would appreciate it.. Something very minimal would be awesome.. maybe like: for a; do lll $a; done Note this uses the latest version of GNU find built from source, easy to build from gnu ftp tarball. Taken from my http://www.askapache.com/linux-unix/bash_profile-functions-advanced-shell.html Show Sample Output

Uses GNU Parallel. Show Sample Output

This bash function uses albumart.org to find the cover for an album. It returns an amazon.com url to the image. Usage: albumart [artist] [album] These arguments can be reversed and if the album name is distinct enough, it may be possible to omit the artist. The command can be extended with wget to automatically download the matching image like this: albumart(){ local x y="$@";x=$(awk '/View larger image/{gsub(/^.*largeImagePopup\(.|., .*$/,"");print;exit}' <(curl -s 'http://www.albumart.org/index.php?srchkey='${y// /+}'&itempage=1&newsearch=1&searchindex=Music'));[ -z "$x" ]&&echo "Not found."||wget "$x" -O "${y}.${x##*.}";} Show Sample Output

This version works on Mac (avoids grep -P, adding a sed step instead, and invokes /usr/bin/perl with full path in case you have another one installed). Still requires that you install perl module HTML::Entities ? here's how: http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=640489

This shell function grabs the weather forecast for the next 24 to 48 hours from weatherunderground.com. Replace <YOURZIPORLOCATION> with your zip code or your "city, state" or "city, country", then calling the function without any arguments returns the weather for that location. Calling the function with a zip code or place name as an argument returns the weather for that location instead of your default. To add a bit of color formatting to the output, use the following instead: weather(){ curl -s "http://api.wunderground.com/auto/wui/geo/ForecastXML/index.xml?query=${@:-<YOURZIPORLOCATION>}"|perl -ne '/<title>([^<]+)/&&printf "\x1B[0;34m%s\x1B[0m: ",$1;/<fcttext>([^<]+)/&&print $1,"\n"';} Requires: perl, curl Show Sample Output

cat mod_log_config.c | shmore or shmore < mod_log_config.c Most pagers like less, more, most, and others require additional processes to be loaded, additional cpu time used, and if that wasn't bad enough, most of them modify the output in ways that can be undesirable. What I wanted was a "more" pager that was basically the same as running: cat file Without modifying the output and without additional processes being created, cpu used, etc. Normally if you want to scroll the output of cat file without modifying the output I would have to scroll back my terminal or screen buffer because less modifies the output. After looking over many examples ranging from builtin cat functions created for csh, zsh, ksh, sh, and bash from the 80's, 90s, and more recent examples shipped with bash 4, and after much trial and error, I finally came up with something that satisifed my objective. It automatically adjusts to the size of your terminal window by using the LINES variable (or 80 lines if that is empty) so This is a great function that will work as long as your shell works, so it will work just find if you are booted in single user mode and your /usr/bin directory is missing (where less and other pagers can be). Using builtins like this is fantastic and is comparable to how busybox works, as long as your shell works this will work. One caveat/note: I always have access to a color terminal, and I always setup both the termcap and the terminfo packages for color terminals (and/or ncurses and slang), so for that reason I stuck the tput setab 4; tput setaf 7 command at the beginning of the function, so it only runs 1 time, and that causes the -- SHMore -- prompt to have a blue background and bright white text. This is one of hundreds of functions I have in my http://www.askapache.com/linux-unix/bash_profile-functions-advanced-shell.html">.bash_profile at http://www.askapache.com/">AskApache.com, but actually won't be included till the next update. If you can improve this in any way at all please let me know, I would be very grateful! ( Like one thing I want is to be able to continue to the next screen by pressing any key instead of now having to press enter to continue) Show Sample Output

A bitcoin "brainwallet" is a secret passphrase you carry in your brain. The Bitcoin Brainwallet Private Key Base58 Encoder is the third of three functions needed to calculate a bitcoin PRIVATE key from your "brainwallet" passphrase. This base58 encoder uses the obase parameter of the amazing bc utility to convert from ASCII-hex to base58. Tech note: bc inserts line continuation backslashes, but the "read s" command automatically strips them out. I hope that one day base58 will, like base64, be added to the amazing openssl utility. Show Sample Output

If you omit the function name, the command will display all definitions Show Sample Output

A bitcoin "brainwallet" is a secret passphrase you carry in your brain. The Bitcoin Brainwallet Exponent Calculator is the second of three functions needed to calculate a bitcoin PRIVATE key. Roughly, checksum is the first 8 hex digits of sha256(sha256(0x80+sha256(passphrase))) Note that this is a bash function, which means you have to type its name to invoke it Show Sample Output

More recent versions of the date command finally have the ability to decode the unix epoch time into a human readable date. This function makes it simple to utilize this feature quickly. Show Sample Output

Just add this function to your .zshrc / .bashrc, and by typing "shout *URL*" you get a randomly chosen English word that ShoutKey.com uses to short your URL. You may now go to shoutkey.com/*output_word* and get redirected. The URL will be valid for 5 minutes. (I've never used sed before, so I'll be quite glad if someone could straighten up the sed commands and combine them (perhaps also removing the whitespace). If so, I'll update it right away ;) ) Show Sample Output