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

Unlike other methods that use pipes and exec software like tr or sed or subshells, this is an extremely fast way to print a line and will always be able to detect the terminal width or else defaults to 80. It uses bash builtins for printf and echo and works with printf that supports the non-POSIX `-v` option to store result to var instead of printing to stdout. Here it is in a function that lets you change the line character to use and the length with args, it also supports color escape sequences with the echo -e option. function L() { local l=; builtin printf -vl "%${2:-${COLUMNS:-`tput cols 2>&-||echo 80`}}s\n" && echo -e "${l// /${1:-=}}"; } With color: L "`tput setaf 3`=" 1. Use printf to store n space chars followed by a newline to an environment variable "l" where n is local environment variable from $COLUMNS if set, else it will use `tput cols` and if that fails it will default to 80. 2. If printf succeeds then echo `$l` that contains the chars, replacing all blank spaces with "-" (can be changed to anything you want). From: http://www.askapache.com/linux/bash_profile-functions-advanced-shell.html http://www.askapache.com/linux/bash-power-prompt.html Show Sample Output

This is a very hackish way to do it that I'm mainly just posting for fun, and I guess technically can more accurately be said to result in undefined behavior. What the command does is tell the shell to treat libpng like it's a shell plugin (which it's most certainly not) and attempt to install a "png_create_read" command from the library. It looks for the struct with the information about the command; since it's always the command name followed by "_struct", it'll look for a symbol called "png_create_read_struct". And it finds it, since this is the name of one of libpng's functions. But bash has no way to tell it's a function instead of a struct, so it goes ahead and parses the function's code as if it was command metadata. Inevitably, bash will attempt to dereference an invalid pointer or whatever, resulting in a segfault.

Finds executable and existing directories in your path that can be useful if migrating a profile script to another system. This is faster and smaller than any other method due to using only bash builtin commands. See also: + http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/view/743/list-all-execs-in-path-usefull-for-grepping-the-resulting-list + http://www.askapache.com/linux-unix/bash_profile-functions-advanced-shell.html Show Sample Output

This provides a way to sort output based on the length of the line, so that shorter lines appear before longer lines. It's an addon to the sort that I've wanted for years, sometimes it's very useful. Taken from my http://www.askapache.com/linux-unix/bash_profile-functions-advanced-shell.html Show Sample Output

One of the first functions programmers learn is how to print a line. This is my 100% bash builtin function to do it, which makes it as optimal as a function can be. The COLUMNS environment variable is also set by bash (including bash resetting its value when you resize your term) so its very efficient. I like pretty-output in my shells and have experimented with several ways to output a line the width of the screen using a minimal amount of code. This is like version 9,000 lol. This function is what I use, though when using colors or other terminal features I create separate functions that call this one, since this is the lowest level type of function. It might be better named printl(), but since I use it so much it's more optimal to have the name contain less chars (both for my programming and for the internal workings). If you do use terminal escapes this will reset to default. tput sgr0 For implementation ideas, check my http://www.askapache.com/linux-unix/bash_profile-functions-advanced-shell.html Show Sample Output

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

Applies each file operator using the built-in test. testt /home/askapache/.sq /home/askapache/.sq -a True - file exists. -d True - file is a directory. -e True - file exists. -r True - file is readable by you. -s True - file exists and is not empty. -w True - the file is writable by you. -x True - the file is executable by you. -O True - the file is effectively owned by you. -G True - the file is effectively owned by your group. -N True - the file has been modified since it was last read. Full Function: testt () { local dp; until [ -z "${1:-}" ]; do dp="$1"; [[ ! -a "$1" ]] && dp="$PWD/$dp"; command ls -w $((${COLUMNS:-80}-20)) -lA --color=tty -d "$dp"; [[ -d "$dp" ]] && find "$dp" -mount -depth -wholename "$dp" -printf '%.5m %10M %#15s %#9u %-9g %#5U %-5G %Am/%Ad/%AY %Cm/%Cd/%CY %Tm/%Td/%TY [%Y] %p\n' -a -quit 2> /dev/null; for f in a b c d e f g h L k p r s S t u w x O G N; do test -$f "$dp" && help test | sed "/-$f F/!d" | sed -e 's#^[\t ]*-\([a-zA-Z]\{1\}\) F[A-Z]*[\t ]* True if#-\1 "'$dp'" #g'; done; shift; done } Show Sample Output

I just found another use for the builtin ':' bash command. It increments counters for me in a loop if a certain condition is met... : [arguments] No effect; the command does nothing beyond expanding arguments and performing any specified redirections. A zero exit code is returned. Show Sample Output

The "type" builtin command is handy to find out what executable will be used if you issue a command. But on some distros, particularly when using /etc/alternatives, certain executables get buried under layers and layers of symbolic links and it becomes hard to find which one. If you put the above command in your .bashrc, it adds a "-c" option to the type command that will weed through the symbolic links and prints the actual file that will be executed. Show Sample Output