Commands using printf sorted by votes

Commands using printf (206)

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Plot frequency distribution of words from files on a terminal.

Uses the dumb terminal option in gnuplot to plot a graph of frequencies. In this case, we are looking at a frequency analysis of words in all of the .c files. Show Sample Output

This is sample output - yours may be different.

$ cat *.c | { printf "se te du\nplot '-' t '' w dots\n"; tr '[[:upper:]]' '[[:lower:]]' | tr -s [[:punct:][:space:]] '\n' | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr | head -n 100 | awk '{print $1}END{print "e"}'; } | gnuplot

  60 .+-----+------+------+------+-------+------+------+------+------+-----++
     +      +      +      +      +       +      +      +      +      +      +
     |                                                                      |
  50 ++                                                                    ++
     |                                                                      |
     |.                                                                     |
     |.                                                                     |
  40 ++                                                                    ++
     |                                                                      |
     | ..                                                                   |
  30 ++                                                                    ++
     |   .                                                                  |
     |                                                                      |
  20 ++  ..                                                                ++
     |     ..                                                               |
     |       ..                                                             |
     |         ...                                                          |
  10 ++           ....                                                     ++
     |                ...............                                       |
     +      +      +      +      +   .......................................+
   0 ++-----+------+------+------+-------+------+------+------+------+-----++
     0      10     20     30     40      50     60     70     80     90    100

cat *.c | { printf "se te du\nplot '-' t '' w dots\n"; tr '[[:upper:]]' '[[:lower:]]' | tr -s [[:punct:][:space:]] '\n' | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr | head -n 100 | awk '{print $1}END{print "e"}'; } | gnuplot

taliver · 2009-11-20 14:53:26 7

Print a row of characters across the terminal

Pure Bash This will print a row of characters the width of the screen without using any external executables. In some cases, COLUMNS may not be set. Here is an alternative that uses tput to generate a default if that's the case. And it still avoids using tr. printf -v row "%${COLUMNS:-$(tput cols)}s"; echo ${row// /#} The only disadvantage to either one is that they create a variable. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
################################################################################
```
5

printf -v row "%${COLUMNS}s"; echo ${row// /#}

dennisw · 2010-04-13 21:56:46 3
Rename all (jpg) files written as 3 number in 4 numbers.

Useful if you have a list of images called 1 2 3 4 and so on, you can adapt it to rewrite it as 4 (in this example) 0-padded number. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
mv 799.jpg 0799.jpg
mv 800.jpg 0800.jpg
mv 801.jpg 0801.jpg
mv 802.jpg 0802.jpg
mv 803.jpg 0803.jpg
```
5

for i in ???.jpg; do mv $i $(printf %04d $(basename $i .jpg) ).jpg ; done

carlesso · 2010-11-18 23:48:41 3
full memcache client in under 255 chars (uses dd, sed and nc)

usage: mem memcache-command [arguments] where memcache-command might be: set add get[s] append prepend replace delete incr decr cas stats verbosity version notes: exptime argument is set to 0 (no expire) flags argument is set to 1 (arbitrary)
This is sample output - yours may be different.
5

mem(){ { case $1 in st*|[vgid]*) printf "%s " "$@";; *) dd if=$3 2>&1|sed '$!d;/^0/d;s/ .*//;s/^/'"$1"' '"$2"' 1 0 /; r '"$3"'' 2>/dev/null;;esac;printf "\r\nquit\r\n";}|nc -n 127.0.0.1 11211; }

argv · 2011-06-17 06:39:07 6
Graphically show percent of mount space used

Automatically drops mount points that have non-numeric sizes (e.g. /proc). Tested in bash on Linux and AIX. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
/                        ============= 13
/var                     ================== 18
/home                    ============================================ 44
/tmp                     == 2
/boot                    ====== 6
/dev/shm                  0
```
5

for m in `df -P | awk -F ' ' '{print $NF}' | sed -e "1d"`;do n=`df -P | grep "$m$" | awk -F ' ' '{print $5}' | cut -d% -f1`;i=0;if [[ $n =~ ^-?[0-9]+$ ]];then printf '%-25s' $m;while [ $i -lt $n ];do echo -n '=';let "i=$i+1";done;echo " $n";fi;done

drockney · 2013-07-29 20:12:39 6
Bitcoin Brainwallet Exponent Calculator

A bitcoin "brainwallet" is a secret passphrase you carry in your brain. The Bitcoin Brainwallet Exponent Calculator is one of three functions needed to calculate the bitcoin PRIVATE key. Roughly, the formula is exponent = sha256 (passphrase) Note that this is a bash function, which means you have to type its name to invoke it. You can check the accuracy of the results here http://brainwallet.org Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
> brainwallet_exponent "correct horse battery staple"
> c4bbcb1fbec99d65bf59d85c8cb62ee2db963f0fe106f483d9afa73bd4e39a8a

> echo -ne "correct horse battery staple" | sha256sum
> c4bbcb1fbec99d65bf59d85c8cb62ee2db963f0fe106f483d9afa73bd4e39a8a  -
```
5

function brainwallet_exponent () { printf %s "$1"|sha256sum|head -c 64; }

nixnax · 2014-02-18 01:49:09 27
List docker volumes by container
This is sample output - yours may be different.
5

docker ps -a --format '{{ .ID }}' | xargs -I {} docker inspect -f '{{ .Name }}{{ printf "\n" }}{{ range .Mounts }}{{ printf "\n\t" }}{{ .Type }} {{ if eq .Type "bind" }}{{ .Source }}{{ end }}{{ .Name }} => {{ .Destination }}{{ end }}{{ printf "\n" }}' {}

expelledboy · 2018-10-31 18:20:26 514
Have a smile

Outputs utf-8 smileys Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
```
5

printf "$(awk 'BEGIN{c=127;while(c++<191){printf("\xf0\x9f\x98\\%s",sprintf("%o",c));}}')"

ichbins · 2022-04-06 12:10:37 439
remove all snapshots from all virtual machines in vmware esx

Old snapshots can cause problems. It's best to remove them when finished. I use this script to remove all snapshots. The "while read" command is necessary because my vm names contain spaces. The "time" command reports how long the process runs.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
4

time vmware-cmd -l | while read x; do printf "$x"; vmware-cmd "$x" removesnapshots; done

jcgam69 · 2009-02-26 18:51:29 9
Create AUTH PLAIN string to test SMTP AUTH session

I use this as an alias: alias authplain "printf '\!:1\0\!:1\0\!:2' | mmencode | tr -d '\n' | sed 's/^/AUTH PLAIN /'" then.. # authplain someuser@somedomain.com secretpassword AUTH PLAIN c29tZXVzZXJAc29tZWRvbWFpbi5jb20Ac29tZXVzZXJAc29tZWRvbWFpbi5jb20Ac2VjcmV0cGFzc3dvcmQ= # Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
AUTH PLAIN dmlsbGUAdmlsbGUAc2FsYXNhbmE=
```
4

printf '\!:1\0\!:1\0\!:2' | mmencode | tr -d '\n' | sed 's/^/AUTH PLAIN /'

vwal · 2009-08-04 05:04:50 4
Resize a Terminal Window

Replace 70 with the desired height. Replace 180 with the desired width. I put it in my bashrc, because by default my terminal is too small.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
4

printf "\e[8;70;180;t"

jearsh · 2010-01-07 05:58:16 38
bash-quine

this command prints itself out. it doesn't need to be stored in a file and it isn't as easy as echo $BASH_COMMAND for information on quines see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quine_(computing)
This is sample output - yours may be different.
4

s='s=\47%s\47; printf "$s" "$s"'; printf "$s" "$s"

fpunktk · 2010-05-09 16:52:58 9
Print number of mb of free ram

This will show the amount of physical RAM that is left unused by the system. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
13 MB
```
4

grep '^MemFree:' /proc/meminfo | awk '{ mem=($2)/(1024) ; printf "%0.0f MB\n", mem }'

dbbolton · 2010-06-30 18:33:29 3
Monitor a file with tail with timestamps added

Should be a bit more portable since echo -e/n and date's -Ins are not. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
....
2010-11-24 05:46:58+0000        ##########
2010-11-24 05:46:59+0000        #  EOF   #
2010-11-24 05:46:59+0000        ##########
```
4

tail -f file | while read line; do printf "$(date -u '+%F %T%z')\t$line\n"; done

derekschrock · 2010-11-24 05:50:12 4
Binary digits Matrix effect

Prints 0's and 1's in The Matrix style. You can easily modify to print 0-9 digits using $RANDOM %10 insted of %2.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
4

echo -e "\e[32m"; while :; do printf '%*c' $(($RANDOM % 30)) $(($RANDOM % 2)); done

fernandomerces · 2012-09-25 17:36:25 4
Print a row of characters the width of terminal

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 sample output - yours may be different.
```
$ L '<' 40
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

$ L '=';
================================================================================

$ L 'x';
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

$ L '-';
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

$ L '~';
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

$ L '`';
````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````

$ L '>';
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

$ L '#';
################################################################################

$ L '@';
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
```
4

printf -vl "%${COLUMNS:-`tput cols 2>&-||echo 80`}s\n" && echo ${l// /-};

AskApache · 2016-09-25 10:37:20 15
Print a horizontal line

Replace the underscore with any other character. e.g. + or - or =
This is sample output - yours may be different.
4

printf "%`tput cols`s"|sed "s/ /_/g"

houghi001 · 2018-11-12 19:44:16 551
Display rows and columns of random numbers with awk

Displays six rows and five columns of random numbers between 0 and 1. If you need only one column, you can dispense with the "for" loop. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
0.237788 0.291066 0.845814 0.152208 0.585537 
0.193475 0.810623 0.173531 0.484983 0.151863 
0.366957 0.491736 0.910094 0.265257 0.893188 
0.220351 0.631798 0.571077 0.332158 0.104455 
0.502931 0.567394 0.854165 0.040141 0.108022 
0.639396 0.013111 0.720184 0.101814 0.482945
```
3

seq 6 | awk '{for(x=1; x<=5; x++) {printf ("%f ", rand())}; printf ("\n")}'

kaan · 2009-03-24 21:33:38 5
make 100 directories with leading zero, 001...100, using bash3.X
This is sample output - yours may be different.
3

mkdir $(printf '%03d\n' {1..100})

twfcc · 2009-08-14 11:35:43 4
formatting number with comma

it is not work with Cygwin's bash3.X. Test in Linux. use printf "%'f" number while it is floating point number Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
1,234,567
```
3

printf "%'d\n" 1234567

twfcc · 2009-08-15 14:48:56 4
Using column to format a directory listing

Using column to format a directory listing Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
PERMISSIONS  LINKS  OWNER  GROUP  SIZE        MONTH  DAY  HH:MM  PROG-NAME
-rw-r--r--   1      root   root   61167       12.    Nov  2008   120253snmp.log
-rw-r--r--   1      root   root   246313      6.     M?r  2008   120_43.log
-rw-r--r--   1      root   root   22947       14.    Mai  09:42  120discovery.log
```
3

(printf "PERMISSIONS LINKS OWNER GROUP SIZE MONTH DAY HH:MM PROG-NAME\n" \ ; ls -l | sed 1d) | column -t

opexxx · 2009-10-08 11:53:38 5
StopWatch, simple text, hh:mm:ss using Unix Time

Works on real time clock, unix time based, decrementing the actual time from initial time saved in an environment variable exported to child process inside watch Shows elapsed time from start of script in hh:mm:ss format Non afected by system slow down due to the use of date.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
3

export I=$(date +%s); watch -t -n 1 'T=$(date +%s);E=$(($T-$I));hours=$((E / 3600)) ; seconds=$((E % 3600)) ; minutes=$((seconds / 60)) ; seconds=$((seconds % 60)) ; echo $(printf "%02d:%02d:%02d" $hours $minutes $seconds)'

m33600 · 2009-10-23 07:31:44 8
urldecoding

My version uses printf and command substitution ($()) instead of echo -e and xargs, this is a few less chars, but not real substantive difference. Also supports lowercase hex letters and a backslash (\) will make it through unescaped Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
Hello%20World
gives
Hello World

\unescaped!
gives
\unescaped!
```
3

printf $(echo -n $1 | sed 's/\\/\\\\/g;s/$%$$[0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F]$/\\x\2/g')

infinull · 2009-11-25 04:27:39 414
Email someone if a web page has been updated.

A cronjob command line to email someone when a webpages homepage is updated.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
3

cd /some/empty/folder/website_diffs/sitename && wget -N http://domain.com/ 2>&1 |grep -q "o newer" || printf "Sites web page appears to have updated.\n\nSuggest you check it out.\n\n"|mail -s "Sites page updated." david@email.com

DaveQB · 2010-05-09 07:28:42 3
Binary clock

displays current time in "binary clock" format (loosely) inspired by: http://www.thinkgeek.com/homeoffice/lights/59e0/ "Decoding": 8421 .... - 1st hour digit: 0 *..* - 2nd hour digit: 9 (8+1) .*.. - 1st minutes digit: 4 *..* - 2nd minutes digit: 9 (8+1) Prompt-command version: PROMPT_COMMAND='echo "10 i 2 o $(date +"%H%M"|cut -b 1,2,3,4 --output-delimiter=" ") f"|dc|tac|xargs printf "%04d\n"|tr "01" ".*"' Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
....
....
.*..
...*
```
3

echo "10 i 2 o $(date +"%H%M"|cut -b 1,2,3,4 --output-delimiter=' ') f"|dc|tac|xargs printf "%04d\n"|tr "01" ".*"

unefunge · 2010-11-24 23:49:21 6
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Matrix Style

Another wall matrix :)

Color man pages

Add the followin to ~/.bashrc #colour export LESS_TERMCAP_mb=$'\E[01;31m' export LESS_TERMCAP_md=$'\E[01;37m' export LESS_TERMCAP_me=$'\E[0m' export LESS_TERMCAP_se=$'\E[0m' export LESS_TERMCAP_so=$'\E[01;44;33m' export LESS_TERMCAP_ue=$'\E[0m' export LESS_TERMCAP_us=$'\E[01;32m'

Exit mc with 2 keystrokes

For those who like to hit instead of typing "exit" to leave the shell and find it annoying that it doesn't work in Midnight Commander, just press to switch to the subshell and now you can leave with

HOME USE ONLY: Get rid of annoying Polkit password prompts

Although the need to type a password to make certain changes to the system may make perfect sense in a business or educational environment, it makes absolutely zero sense to the home user. So, if you’re at home and would rather get work done than be annoyed by what is essentially Linux’s UAC, then this command is for you.

remote-pbzip2 and transfer a directory to local file

complete extraction of a debian-package

extracts the debian-package $debfile to $extractdir, including all packaging-information. to repack the package, just type: $dpkg-deb -b $extractdir

run command on a group of nodes in parallel

Colorized grep in less

Get your colorized grep output in less(1). This involves two things: forcing grep to output colors even though it's not going to a terminal and telling less to handle those properly.

Remove today's Debian installed packages

Adapted using your usefull comments !

Multi-thread any command

For instance: $ find . -type f -name '*.wav' -print0 |xargs -0 -P 3 -n 1 flac -V8 will encode all .wav files into FLAC in parallel. Explanation of xargs flags: -P [max-procs]: Max number of invocations to run at once. Set to 0 to run all at once [potentially dangerous re: excessive RAM usage]. -n [max-args]: Max number of arguments from the list to send to each invocation. -0: Stdin is a null-terminated list. I use xargs to build parallel-processing frameworks into my scripts like the one here: http://pastebin.com/1GvcifYa

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Commands using printf (206)

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