Commands using ls (517)

  • Find all SUID binaries


    1
    find / -perm +6000 -type f -exec ls -ld {} \;
    aguslr · 2011-10-14 22:19:58 5
  • Zip each file in a directory individually with the original file name

    This will list the files in a directory, then zip each one with the original filename individually. video1.wmv -> video1.zip video2.wmv -> video2.zip This was for zipping up large amounts of video files for upload on a Windows machine.


    1
    ls -1 | awk ' { print "zip "$1".zip " $1 } ' | sh
    kaywhydub · 2011-12-14 20:30:56 6
  • list with full path


    1
    ls -d $PWD/*
    putnamhill · 2011-12-16 19:12:55 3
  • list with full path


    1
    ls -d1 $PWD/{.*,*}
    bunam · 2011-12-17 12:25:15 2
  • list with full path


    1
    ls -d1 $PWD/*
    www · 2011-12-31 14:46:41 3
  • List files in directory tree with newest last


    1
    find <directory> -type f -printf "%T@\t%p\n"|sort -n|cut -f2|xargs ls -lrt
    rik · 2012-03-02 12:51:06 3
  • Recursively list all of the files in a directory, group them by extension and calculate the average of the file sizes in each group

    Here's an annotated version of the command, using full-names instead of aliases. It is exactly equivalent to the short-hand version. # Recursively list all the files in the current directory. Get-ChildItem -Recurse | # Filter out the sub-directories themselves. Where-Object { return -not $_.PsIsContainer; } | # Group the resulting files by their extensions. Group-Object Extension | # Pluck the Name and Count properties of each group and define # a custom expression that calculates the average of the sizes # of the files in that group. # The back-tick is a line-continuation character. Select-Object ` Name, Count, @{ Name = 'Average'; Expression = { # Average the Length (sizes) of the files in the current group. return ($_.Group | Measure-Object -Average Length).Average; } } | # Format the results in a tabular view, automatically adjusted to # widths of the values in the columns. Format-Table -AutoSize ` @{ # Rename the Name property to something more sensible. Name = 'Extension'; Expression = { return $_.Name; } }, Count, @{ # Format the Average property to display KB instead of bytes # and use a formatting string to show it rounded to two decimals. Name = 'Average Size (KB)'; # The "1KB" is a built-in constant which is equal to 1024. Expression = { return $_.Average / 1KB }; FormatString = '{0:N2}' } Show Sample Output


    1
    ls -r | ?{-not $_.psiscontainer} | group extension | select name, count, @{n='average'; e={($_.group | measure -a length).average}} | ft -a @{n='Extension'; e={$_.name}}, count, @{n='Average Size (KB)'; e={$_.average/1kb}; f='{0:N2}'}
    brianpeiris · 2012-03-13 17:58:10 9
  • export iPad App list to txt file

    This will generate the same output without changing the current directory, and filepath will be relative to the current directory. Note: it will (still) fail if your iTunes library is in a non-standard location.


    1
    ls "~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Mobile Applications" > filepath
    minnmass · 2012-05-04 09:51:59 49
  • pngcrush all .png files in the directory

    Nothing too magical here, just uses pngcrush to losslessly compress all your pngs!


    1
    ls *.png | while read line; do pngcrush -brute $line compressed/$line; done
    waffleboi9 · 2012-07-17 20:20:49 5
  • Hide files in ls, by adding support for .hidden files!

    Sometimes I would like to see hidden files, prefix with a period, but some files or folders I never want to see (and really wish I could just remove all together). Show Sample Output


    1
    alias ls='if [[ -f .hidden ]]; then while read l; do opts+=(--hide="$l"); done < .hidden; fi; ls --color=auto "${opts[@]}"'
    expelledboy · 2012-08-12 13:10:23 5
  • Symlink all files from a base directory to a target directory


    1
    ln -s /base/* /target && ls -l /target
    mattcen · 2012-08-22 11:27:40 5
  • Show the UUID of a filesystem or partition

    Show the UUID-based alternate device names of ZEVO-related partitions on Darwin/OS X. Adapted from the lines by dbrady at http://zevo.getgreenbytes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=700#p700 and following the disk device naming scheme at http://zevo.getgreenbytes.com/wiki/pmwiki.php?n=Site.DiskDeviceNames Show Sample Output


    1
    ls /dev/disk* | xargs -n 1 -t sudo zdb -l | grep GPTE_
    grahamperrin · 2012-10-06 20:19:45 5
  • Get the /dev/disk/by-id fragment for a physical drive

    Substitute for #11720 Can probably be even shorter and easier. Show Sample Output


    1
    ls -l /dev/disk/by-id/ | grep '/sda$' | grep -o 'ata[^ ]*'
    michelsberg · 2013-01-16 17:28:11 7
  • ls -qahlSr # list all files in size order - largest last

    I find it useful, when cleaning up deleting unwanted files to make more space, to list in size order so I can delete the largest first. Note that using "q" shows files with non-printing characters in name. In this sample output (above), I found two copies of the same iso file both of which are immediate "delete candidates" for me. Show Sample Output


    1
    ls -qahlSr # list all files in size order - largest last
    mpb · 2013-03-13 09:52:07 29
  • Find top 5 big files

    zsh: list of files sorted by size, greater than 100mb, head the top 5. '**/*' is recursive, and the glob qualifiers provide '.' = regular file, 'L' size, which is followed by 'm' = 'megabyte', and finally '+100' = a value of 100


    1
    ls -Sh **/*(.Lm+100) | tail -5
    khayyam · 2013-03-21 20:22:11 4
  • Prints total line count contribution per user for an SVN repository

    make usable on OSX with filenames containing spaces. note: will still break if filenames contain newlines... possible, but who does that?!


    1
    svn ls -R | egrep -v -e "\/$" | tr '\n' '\0' | xargs -0 svn blame | awk '{print $2}' | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr
    rymo · 2013-04-10 19:37:53 5
  • Like top but for files

    Like top, but for files


    1
    watch -d -n 2 'df; ls -FlAt;'
    G2G · 2013-09-17 05:44:47 6
  • Prints the latest modified files in a directory tree recursively

    Sorts by latest modified files by looking to current directory and all subdirectories Show Sample Output


    1
    find . -name '*pdf*' -print0 | xargs -0 ls -lt | head -20
    fuats · 2013-10-03 21:58:51 9
  • count files by type

    displays a list of all file extensions in current directory and how many files there are of each type of extension in ascending order (case insensitive) Show Sample Output


    1
    ls | tr [:upper:] [:lower:] | grep -oP '\.[^\.]+$' | sort | uniq -c | sort
    icefyre · 2014-01-30 11:37:27 10
  • List all NPM global packages installed

    Show Sample Output


    1
    npm ls -g|grep "^[&#9500;&#9492;]\(.\+\)\?[&#9516;&#9472;] "
    lucasmezencio · 2014-02-03 21:50:39 7
  • List all duplicate directories

    Very quick! Based only on the content sizes and the character counts of filenames. If both numbers are equal then two (or more) directories seem to be most likely identical. if in doubt apply: diff -rq path_to_dir1 path_to_dir2 AWK function taken from here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2912224/find-duplicates-lines-based-on-some-delimited-fileds-on-line Show Sample Output


    1
    find . -type d| while read i; do echo $(ls -1 "$i"|wc -m) $(du -s "$i"); done|sort -s -n -k1,1 -k2,2 |awk -F'[ \t]+' '{ idx=$1$2; if (array[idx] == 1) {print} else if (array[idx]) {print array[idx]; print; array[idx]=1} else {array[idx]=$0}}'
    knoppix5 · 2014-02-25 22:50:09 27
  • List all symbolic links in current directory

    Tested with GNU and BSD ls. Show Sample Output


    1
    ls -la | grep ^l
    gatopan · 2014-08-11 03:06:48 8
  • List all symbolic links in current directory

    With this version, you can list all symlinks in the current directory (no subdirectories), and have it list both the link and the target. Show Sample Output


    1
    ls -l `find ~ -maxdepth 1 -type l -print`
    skittleys · 2015-01-04 02:36:47 7
  • list txt files order by time

    list all txt files order by time, newest first


    1
    ls -lt --time=atime *.txt
    miccaman · 2015-05-21 21:03:44 10
  • Adding Prefix to File name

    Adding course name prefix to lecture pdfs Show Sample Output


    1
    ls *.pdf | while read file; do newfile="CS749__${file}"; mv "${file}" "${newfile}"; done;
    programmer · 2016-04-19 11:04:47 16
  • ‹ First  < 6 7 8 9 10 >  Last ›

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

Take a screenshot of the window the user clicks on and name the file the same as the window title
In general, this is actually not better than the "scrot -d4" command I'm listing it as an alternative to, so please don't vote it down for that. I'm adding this command because xwd (X window dumper) comes with X11, so it is already installed on your machine, whereas scrot probably is not. I've found xwd handy on boxen that I don't want to (or am not allowed to) install packages on. NOTE: The dd junk for renaming the file is completely optional. I just did that for fun and because it's interesting that xwd embeds the window title in its metadata. I probably should have just parsed the output from file(1) instead of cutting it out with dd(1), but this was more fun and less error prone. NOTE2: Many programs don't know what to do with an xwd format image file. You can convert it to something normal using NetPBM's xwdtopnm(1) or ImageMagick's convert(1). For example, this would work: "xwd | convert fd:0 foo.jpg". Of course, if you have ImageMagick already installed, you'd probably use import(1) instead of xwd. NOTE3: Xwd files can be viewed using the X Window UnDumper: "xwud <foo.xwd". ImageMagick and The GIMP can also read .xwd files. Strangely, eog(1) cannot. NOTE4: The sleep is not strictly necessary, I put it in there so that one has time to raise the window above any others before clicking on it.

follow the content of all files in a directory
The `-q' arg forces tail to not output the name of the current file

sort a JSON blob
For situations where you keep JSON in a VCS and you want your diffs to be sane, such as within a Chef configuration repo.

Change prompt to MS-DOS one (joke)

pass the output of some command to a new email in the default email client
This depends on 'stripansi' and 'urlencode' commands, which exist on my system as these aliases: $ alias stripansi='perl -ple "s/\033\[(?:\d*(?:;\d+)*)*m//g;"' $ alias urlencode='perl -MURI::Escape -ne "\$/=\"\"; print uri_escape \$_"' The `open` command handles URLs on a Mac. Substitute the equivalent for your system (perhaps gnome-open). I don't use system `mail`, so I have this aliased as `mail` and use it this way: $ git show head | mail

github push-ing behind draconian proxies!
If you are behind a restrictive proxy/firewall that blocks port 22 connections but allows SSL on 443 (like most do) then you can still push changes to your github repository. Your .ssh/config file should contain: Host * ForwardX11 no TCPKeepAlive yes ProtocolKeepAlives 30 ProxyCommand /usr/local/bin/proxytunnel -v -p -d %h:443 Host User git Hostname ssh.github.com ChallengeResponseAuthentication yes IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa IdentitiesOnly yes Basically proxytunnel "tunnels" your ssh connection through port 443. You could also use corkscrew or some other tunneling program that is available in your distro's repository. PS: I generally use "github.com" as the SSH-HOST so that urls of the kind git@github.com:USER/REPO.git work transparently :) You

add a gpg key to aptitute package manager in a ubuntu system
when we add a new package to a aptitude (the debian package manager) we need to add the gpg, otherwise it will show warning / error for missing key

Prepare a commandlinefu command.
This command will format your alias or function to a single line, trimming duplicate white space and newlines and inserting delimiter semi-colons, so it continues to work on a single line.

Which processes are listening on a specific port (e.g. port 80)
swap out "80" for your port of interest. Can use port number or named ports e.g. "http"

Shortcut to find files with ease.
It looks for files that contains the given word as parameter. * case insensitive * matches files containing the given word.

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: