Commands using expr (16)

  • Quick command line math

    expr will give you a quick way to do basic math from the CLI. Make sure you escape things like * and leave a space between operators and digits. Show Sample Output


    4
    expr 512 \* 7
    chuckr · 2009-09-23 19:11:38 20
  • Labyrinth pattern

    Generates labyrinth-like pattern on UTF-8 terminal in bash. For fun ;) Show Sample Output


    3
    while ( true ) ; do if [ $(expr $RANDOM % 2 ) -eq 0 ] ; then echo -ne "\xE2\x95\xB1" ; else echo -ne "\xE2\x95\xB2" ; fi ; done
    tobi · 2015-01-17 12:46:37 11
  • Mortality Countdown

    watch the seconds of your life tick away - replace YYYY-mm-dd HH:MM:ss w/ your birthtime.


    2
    while [ 0 ]; do expr 2365200000 \- `date +%s` \- `date --date "YYYY-mm-dd HH:MM:ss" +%s`; sleep 1; clear; done
    wwest4 · 2009-02-13 20:02:37 22
  • Blue Matrix

    Same as original, but works in bash


    2
    while [ 1 -lt 2 ]; do i=0; COL=$((RANDOM%$(tput cols)));ROW=$((RANDOM%$(tput cols)));while [ $i -lt $COL ]; do tput cup $i $ROW;echo -e "\033[1;34m" $(cat /dev/urandom | head -1 | cut -c1-1) 2>/dev/null ; i=$(expr $i + 1); done; done
    dave1010 · 2010-05-28 16:07:56 6
  • "at" command w/o the resource usage/competition issues

    EXAMPLES jb "next sun 12pm" "/bin/sh ~you/1.sh" & jb "2010-08-29 12:00:00" "~you/1.sh" & jb "29aug2010 gmt" ". ~you/1.sh" & jb 12:00p.m. "nohup ./1.sh" & jb 1min "echo stop!" & SEE ALSO parsedate(3) strftime(3)


    2
    jb() { if [ -z $1 ];then printf 'usage:\njb <"date and/or time"> <"commandline"> &\nsee parsedate(3) strftime(3)\n';else t1=$(date +%s); t2=$(date -d "$1" +%s) ;sleep $(expr $t2 - $t1);$2 ;fi ;}
    argv · 2010-08-26 23:50:42 5
  • Sum file sizes


    1
    expr `find . -type f -printf "%s + "0`
    sraeder · 2011-02-13 00:03:31 5
  • Take a screenshot every 2 seconds

    Take a screenshot every 2 seconds and save it as a png file


    1
    i=0;while :; do i=$(expr "$i" + 1); scrot "$i".png; sleep 2; done;
    scripteles · 2011-05-27 00:25:28 4
  • give record size of given record-structured file

    command was too long... this is the complete command: fname=$1; f=$( ls -la $fname ); if [ -n "$f" ]; then fsz=$( echo $f | awk '{ print $5 }' ); if [ "$fsz" -ne "0" ]; then nrrec=$( wc -l $fname | awk '{ print $1 }' ); recsz=$( expr $fsz / $nrrec ); echo "$recsz"; else echo "0"; fi else echo "file $fname does not exist" >&2; fi First the input is stored in var $fname The file is checked for existance using "ls -lart". If the output of "ls -lart" is empty, the error message is given on stderr Otherwise the filelength is taken from the output of "ls -lart" (5th field) With "wc -l" the number of records (or lines) is taken. The record size is filelength devided by the number of records. please note: this method does not take into account any headers, variable length records and only works on ascii files where the records are sperated by 0x0A (or 0x0A/0x0D on MS-DOS/Windows). Show Sample Output


    0
    fname=$1;f=$(ls -la $fname);fsz=$(echo $f|awk '{ print $5 }');nrrec=$(wc -l $fname|awk '{ print $1 }');recsz=$(expr $fsz / $nrrec);echo "$recsz"
    vuurst · 2010-09-14 08:40:22 4
  • a simple way to calculate the sum of all digits of a number


    0
    expr `echo "123671" | sed -e 's/[0-9]/ + &/g' -e 's/^ +//g'` 20
    maher · 2012-06-24 23:12:30 3
  • find an unused unprivileged TCP port

    Should work with sh, bash, etc. Show Sample Output


    0
    port=32768; while netstat -atn | grep -q :$port; do port=$(expr $port + 1); done; echo $port
    presto8 · 2013-08-29 17:55:55 9
  • debian based OS update apt/dpkg only if it hasn't been updated in N time

    I have this in my .bash_aliases and call it before running apt-get install or apt-get upgrade Example: alias apt-install='apt-update; apt-get install' alias apt-upgrade='apt-update; apt-get upgrade' function apt-update () { if [[ $(expr $(date +%s) - $(stat -c %X /var/lib/apt/periodic/update-success-stamp)) -gt 86400 ]]; then sudo apt-get update else echo apt is up to date fi }


    0
    if [[ $(expr $(date +%s) - $(stat -c %X /var/lib/apt/periodic/update-success-stamp)) -gt 86400 ]]; then sudo apt-get update fi
    gargolito · 2015-05-12 14:45:11 10
  • Alternative way to get the root directory size in megabytes


    -1
    expr $(fdisk -s ` grep ' / ' /etc/mtab |cut -d " " -f1`) / 1024
    ncaio · 2009-05-21 17:25:38 6
  • truncate half of `input.txt`


    -1
    dd of=output.txt if=input.txt ibs=1 skip=$(expr `stat -c%s input.txt` / 2)
    kev · 2011-07-10 12:04:48 8
  • big countdown clock with hours, minutes and seconds

    Change HH:MM with your target time. This is for a Debian/Ubuntu GNU system. You need bash (package bash), date (package coreutils) and toilet (package toilet). Install with: # apt-get install bash coreutils toilet toilet-fonts


    -2
    watch -tn1 'date -u +%T -d @$(expr $(date -d HH:MM +%s) - $(date +%s)) | toilet -f bigmono12'
    prayer · 2010-06-26 11:56:11 4
  • remove the last of all html files in a directory

    plays with bash arrays. instead of storing the list of files in a temp file, this stores the list in ram, retrieves the last element in the array (the last html file), then removes it.


    -3
    a=($(ls *html)) && a=${a[$(expr ${#a[@]} - 1)]} && rm $a
    linuxrawkstar · 2009-10-12 16:40:06 5
  • Blue Matrix

    Matrix Screen HPUX


    -4
    while :; do integer i=0; COL=$((RANDOM%$(tput cols))); ROW=$((RANDOM%$(tput cols))); while (( i <= COL)) do tput cup $i $ROW; echo "\033[1;34m" $(cat /dev/urandom | head -1 | cut -c1-1) 2>/dev/null; i=$(expr $i + 1); done done
    mfrancime · 2010-05-28 11:17:43 4

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When was your OS installed?

Stream your desktop to a remote machine.
This allows you to stream your desktop using vlc to another computer, in this case, 192.168.1.2 on your local network. If you have vlc installed, your all set to try this out. To view your own desktop, just run "vlc screen://" For more info, see http://nerdlogger.com/2008/01/08/stream-your-linuxwindowsmac-desktop-as-video-using-vlc/

Find usb device in realtime
Using this command you can track a moment when usb device was attached.

Show number of NIC's, ports per nic and PCI address

Convert all WMF images to SVG recursively ignoring file extension case
This assumes you have the package installed necessary for converting WMF files. On my Ubuntu box, this is libwmf-bin. I used this command, as libwmf is not on my wife's iMac, so I archived the directories containing the WMF files from OS X, ran them on my Ubuntu box, archived the resulting SVGs, and sent them back to her. Quick, simple and to the point. Searches directories recursively looking for extensions ignoring case. This is much more readable and clean than -exec for find. The while loop also gives further flexibility on complex logic. Also, although there is 'wmf2svg --auto', it expects lowercase extensions, and not uppercase. Because I want to ignore case, I need to use the -o option instead. Works in ZSH and BASH. Haven't tested in other shells.

bash/ksh function: given a file, cd to the directory it lives
fcd : file change directory A bash function that takes a fully qualified file path and cd's into the directory where it lives. Useful on the commadline when you have a file name in a variable and you'd like to cd to the directory to RCS check it in or look at other files associated with it. Will run on any ksh, bash, likely sh, maybe zsh.

Get all documents (doc,docx,xls,xlsx,pdf,ppt,pptx,...) linked in a webpage

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" }

print all network interfaces' names and IPv4 addresses
ifconfig can't properly display interface's name longer 9 symbols,also it can't show IPs added thru ip command, so 'ip' should be used instead. This alias properly shows long names, bond interfaces and all interface aliases. loopback interface is ignored, since its IP is obvious

Make the Mac OS X Dock 2D once more (10.5 and above only)
Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) introduced a new, 3D, reflective Dock. For those of us who prefer the Dock to be a little less distracting, this command is the answer. The Dock will be rendered in the same style as when pinned to the left- or right-hand side of the screen. Replace YES with NO to restore the 3D Dock.

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