Commands tagged ncurses (6)

  • Alias HEAD for automatic smart output

    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. ( http://www.askapache.com/linux-unix/bash-power-prompt.html ) 275MB/748MB [7995:7993 - 0:186] 06:26:49 Thu Apr 08 [[email protected]:/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


    26
    alias head='head -n $((${LINES:-`tput lines 2>/dev/null||echo -n 12`} - 2))'
    AskApache · 2010-04-08 22:37:06 7
  • Ultimate current directory usage command

    An NCurses version of the famous old 'du' unix command


    20
    ncdu
    nickwe · 2009-09-03 20:38:32 1
  • Print all 256 colors for testing TERM or for a quick reference

    This is super fast and an easy way to test your terminal for 256 color support. Unlike alot of info about changing colors in the terminal, this uses the ncurses termcap/terminfo database to determine the escape codes used to generate the colors for a specific TERM. That means you can switch your terminal and then run this to check the real output. tset xterm-256color at any rate that is some super lean code! Here it is in function form to stick in your .bash_profile aa_256 () { ( x=`tput op` y=`printf %$((${COLUMNS}-6))s`; for i in {0..256}; do o=00$i; echo -e ${o:${#o}-3:3} `tput setaf $i;tput setab $i`${y// /=}$x; done ) } From my bash_profile: http://www.askapache.com/linux-unix/bash_profile-functions-advanced-shell.html Show Sample Output


    7
    ( x=`tput op` y=`printf %$((${COLUMNS}-6))s`;for i in {0..256};do o=00$i;echo -e ${o:${#o}-3:3} `tput setaf $i;tput setab $i`${y// /=}$x;done; )
    AskApache · 2010-09-06 10:39:27 2
  • ncdu - ncurses disk usage

    ncdu is a text-mode ncurses-based disk usage analyzer. Useful for when you want to see where all your space is going. For a single flat directory it isn't more elaborate than an du|sort or some such thing, but this analyzes all directories below the one you specify so space consumed by files inside subdirectories is taken into account. This way you get the full picture. Features: file deletion, file size or size on disk and refresh as contents change. Homepage: http://dev.yorhel.nl/ncdu Show Sample Output


    5
    ncdu directory_name
    bwoodacre · 2009-06-09 00:02:48 3
  • Vlc ncurses mode browsing local directorys.


    2
    vlc -I ncurses <MEDIA_DIR>
    sputnick · 2010-02-01 22:47:54 0
  • Print all 256 colors for testing TERM or for a quick reference

    Basically, \033[ is a semi-portable unix escape character. It should work in linux, osx, bsd, etc. The first option is 38. This tells whatever is interpreting this (and this is merely convention) that a special color sequence follows. The next option is 5 which says that the next option will specify a color ? {0..256} of course. These options, as you can see, are separated by a single `;` and the entire escape sequence is followed by a mandatory `m`. The second escape sequence (following "COLOR") is simply to clear all terminal attributes (for our purposes, it clears color). This for loop is helpful for testing all 256 colors in a 256 console (note: this will not work in a standard Linux tty console) or to see which number corresponds to which color so that perhaps you can use it! Show Sample Output


    0
    for i in {0..256}; do echo -e "${i} \033[38;05;${i}m COLOR \033[0m"; done
    Benharper · 2015-12-17 23:49:42 0

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

list files recursively by size

Read funny developer comments in the Linux source tree
These are way better than fortune(6).

format txt as table not joining empty columns
-n switch keeps empty columns If your distribution does not ship with a recent column version that supports -n you can use this alternative: perl -pe 's/(^|;);/$1 ;/g' file.csv | column -ts\; | less -S Change the delimiter to your liking.

Change your swappiness Ratio under linux
This command allow you to set the swappiness var at 50 (default is 60). The value interval must be set between 0 and 100. If swappiness is high=Swap usage is high, if swappiness is low=Ram usage is high.

List the binaries installed by a Debian package
GNU grep's perl-compatible regular expression(PCRE).

Find the package that installed a command

sudo for launching gui apps in background
Need package: gksu Note: Launching gui app in background that needs sudo, won't work great with our old friendly style of launching: $ sudo gedit /etc/passwd & because this would put sudo in background ! Using gksudo as demonstrated, would popup a gui sudo window. May be this is a common knowledge, but not knowing this frustrated me during my newbie year.

Twitpic upload and Tweet

What is my ip?

ubuntu tasksel
The command tasksel allows the choice of packages from the command line to get predefined configurations for specific services (usually this option is offered during installation).

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: