Commands using read sorted by votes

Commands using read (340)

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Download all data from Google Ngram Viewer

To learn more about Google Ngram Viewer: http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/info
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1

wget -qO - http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/datasets | grep -E href='(.+\.zip)' | sed -r "s/.*href='(.+\.zip)'.*/\1/" | uniq | while read line; do `wget $line`; done

sexyprout · 2010-12-20 17:46:04 207
Look up a unicode character by name

No need for further filedes or substitution for splitting. Simply use read a b
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1

grep -i "$*" /usr/lib/perl5/Unicode/CharName.pm | while read a b; do /usr/bin/printf "\u$a\tU+%s\t%s\n" "$b"; done

ioggstream · 2011-01-04 11:30:16 6

Center text in console with simple pipe like

Center the output text in max line length of buffered output pipe; Show Sample Output

center(){ l="$(cat -)"; s=$(echo -e "$l"| wc -L); echo "$l" | while read l;do j=$(((s-${#l})/2));echo "$(while ((--j>0)); do printf " ";done;)$l";done;}; ls --color=none / | center

glaudiston · 2011-02-14 16:50:35 5

Right-align text in console using pipe like ( command | right )
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1

$ right(){ l="$(cat -)"; s=$(echo -e "$l"| wc -L); echo "$l" | while read l;do j=$(((s-${#l})));echo "$(while ((j-->0)); do printf " ";done;)$l";done;}; ls --color=none / | right

glaudiston · 2011-02-14 16:58:37 9
Key binding to search commandlinefu.com

This is a simple bash function and a key binding that uses commandlinefu's simple and easy search API. It prompts for a search term, then it uses curl to search commandline fu, and highlights the search results with less.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1

function ds { echo -n "search : "; read ST; EST=`php -r "echo rawurlencode('$ST');"`; B64=`echo -n $ST| openssl enc -base64`; curl -s "http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/matching/$EST/$B64/plaintext" | less -p "$ST"; } ; bind '"\C-k"':"\"ds\C-m\""

cparker · 2011-02-20 23:46:16 32
sed /pat/!d without using sed (no RE; limited to shell patterns aka globbing)

POSIX requires this "string truncating" functionality. might as well use it, at least for very small tasks where invoking sed and using RE is overkill.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1

se(){ while read a;do [ "$a" != "${a#*$@*}" ]&&echo $a;done ;} # usage: se pattern # use in place of sed /pat/!d where RE are overkill

argv · 2011-04-06 03:37:40 5
monitor your CPU core temperatures in real time

Watch the temperatures of your CPU cores in real time at the command line. Press CONTROL+C to end. GORY DETAILS: Your computer needs to support sensors (many laptops, for example, do not). You'll need to install the lm-sensors package if it isn't already installed. And it helps to run the `sensors-detect` command to set up your sensor kernel modules first. At the very end of the sensors-detect interactive shell prompt, answer YES to add the new lines to the list of kernel modules loaded at boot. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
Core 0:      +52.0?C
Core 1:      +60.0?C
Core 2:      +53.0?C
Core 3:      +52.0?C
```
1

while :; do sensors|grep ^Core|while read x; do printf '% .23s\n' "$x"; done; sleep 1 && clear; done;

linuxrawkstar · 2011-04-20 06:41:57 7
show each new entry in system messages as a popup

It willl popup a message for each new entry in /var/log/messages found on the notify-send howto page on ubuntuforums.org. Posted here only because it is one of the favourites of mine.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1

tail -n0 -f /var/log/messages | while read line; do notify-send "System Message" "$line"; done

hukketto · 2011-07-11 22:33:24 3
Read null character seperated fields from a file

Handle any bad named file which contains ",',\n,\b,\t,` etc Store the file name as null character separated list find . -print0 >name.lst and retrieve it using read -r -d "" Eg: find . -print0 >name.lst; cat name.lst| while IFS="" read -r -d "" file; do ls -l "$file"; done Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
-rw-r--r-- 1 totti root     1 2011-10-25 23:13 a
-rw-r--r-- 1 totti root     1 2011-10-25 23:59 a?b
drwxr-xr-x 2 totti root  4096 2011-10-25 23:00 a?b?c
-rw-r--r-- 1 totti root     1 2011-10-26 00:05 a?b.cd
-rw-r--r-- 1 totti root     6 2011-10-25 23:09 a.t
drwxr-xr-x 2 totti root  4096 2011-10-26 00:11 h"i
```
1

read -d ""

totti · 2011-10-25 18:44:11 16
Replace duplicate files by hardlinks
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1

fdupes -r -1 Neu | while read line; do j="0"; buf=""; for file in ${line[*]}; do if [ "$j" == "0" ]; then j="1"; buf=$file; else ln -f $buf $file; fi; done; done

bugmenot · 2012-01-20 22:26:54 3
Replace duplicate files by hardlinks

This variation can handle file paths containing spaces.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1

fdupes -R -1 path | while read -r line; do (echo $line | xargs -n 1 | (first="true"; firstfile=""; while read file; do if [ "$first" == "true" ]; then first="false"; firstfile=$file; else ln --force "$firstfile" "$file"; fi; done)); done

eclewis · 2012-02-01 15:08:18 3
Check if a machine is online with better UI

I have used single packet, and in a silent mode with no display of ping stats. This is with color and UI improvement to the http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/view/10220/check-if-a-machine-is-online. It is as per the enhancements suggested. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
$ echo -n "IP Address or Machine Name: "; read IP; ping -c 1 -q $IP >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo -e "\e[00;32mOnline\e[00m" || echo -e "\e[00;31mOffline\e[00m"
IP Address or Machine Name: 192.168.1.1
Online

$ echo -n "IP Address or Machine Name: "; read IP; ping -c 1 -q $IP >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo -e "\e[00;32mOnline\e[00m" || echo -e "\e[00;31mOffline\e[00m"
IP Address or Machine Name: 192.168.1.2
Offline
```
1

echo -n "IP Address or Machine Name: "; read IP; ping -c 1 -q $IP >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo -e "\e[00;32mOnline\e[00m" || echo -e "\e[00;31mOffline\e[00m"

crlf · 2012-02-09 07:00:03 9
create and md5 sum of your password

create and md5 sum of your password without it showing up in your terminal or history. Afterwards we overwrite the $p variable (thx to bazzargh) Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
$ read -s p && echo -n $p | md5sum

5f4dcc3b5aa765d61d8327deb882cf99  -
```
1

read -s p && echo -n $p | md5sum;p=

hoodie · 2012-06-08 13:50:50 7
pngcrush all .png files in the directory

Nothing too magical here, just uses pngcrush to losslessly compress all your pngs!
This is sample output - yours may be different.
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
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
ant@dev(/ntfs)# \ls -F
$RECYCLE.BIN/  System Volume Information/  Shared/

ant@dev(/ntfs)# cat .hidden
$RECYCLE.BIN
System Volume Information

ant@dev(/ntfs)# ls -F
Shared/
```
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
Count all files in directories recursively with find

Counts the files present in the different directories recursively. One only has to change maxdepth to have further insight in the directory hierarchy. Found at unix.stackexchange.com: http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/4105/how-do-i-count-all-the-files-recursively-through-directories Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
./Data: 5011
./Data/Intensities:     3
./Data/Intensities/BaseCalls:   2
./Data/Status_Files:    28
./Data/Status_Files/RefreshBtn: 4
./Data/reports: 4978
```
1

find -maxdepth 3 -type d | while read -r dir; do printf "%s:\t" "$dir"; find "$dir" | wc -l; done

brainstorm · 2012-10-15 15:00:09 7
Recompress all files in current directory from gzip to bzip2

Find all .gz files and recompress them to bz2 on the fly. No temp files. edit: forgot the double quotes! jeez!
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1

find . -type f -name "*.gz" | while read line ; do gunzip --to-stdout "$line" | bzip2 > "$(echo $line | sed 's/gz$/bz2/g')" ; done

Kaurin · 2013-04-12 19:18:21 6
Blink Caps Lock on HDD activity

Some computers these days don't have an HDD activity light, but they still have a useless caps-lock, so why not re-purpose that light to show HDD activity? Requires setleds and dstat and probably needs to run as root.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1

dstat -d --nocolor --noheaders|xargs --max-args=2|while read status; do if [ "$status" == "0 0" ]; then setleds -L -caps < /dev/console; else setleds -L +caps < /dev/console; fi; done

intangi · 2013-04-24 18:32:25 8
list files by testing the ownership

Alternative to mnikhil's ls/awk solution
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1

find . -user root

jedifu · 2013-10-16 08:08:41 8
Create full backups of individual folders using find and tar-gzip

Problem: I wanted to backup user data individually. In this example, all user data is located in "/mnt/storage/profiles", and about 25 folders inside, each with a username ( /mnt/storage/profiles/mike; /mnt/storage/profiles/lucy ...) I need each individual folder backed up, not the whole "/mnt/storage/profiles". So, using find while excluding directories depth and creating two variables (tarfile=username & desdir=destination), tar will create a .tgz file for each folder, resulting in a "mike_full.tgz" and "lucy_full.tgz".
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1

find /mnt/storage/profiles/ -maxdepth 1 -mindepth 1 -type d | while read d; do tarfile=`echo "$d" | cut -d "/" -f5`; destdir="/local/backupdir/"; tar -czf $destdir/"$tarfile"_full.tgz -P $d; done

jaimerosario · 2013-12-05 19:07:17 6
Create incremental backups of individual folders using find and tar-gzip

Problem: I wanted to backup user data individually, using and incremental method. In this example, all user data is located in "/mnt/storage/profiles", and about 25 folders inside, each with a username ( /mnt/storage/profiles/mike; /mnt/storage/profiles/lucy ...) I need each individual folder backed up, not the whole "/mnt/storage/profiles". So, using find while excluding directories depth and creating two variables (tarfile=username & desdir=destination), tar will create a .tgz file for each folder, resulting in a "mike_2013-12-05.tgz" and "lucy_2013-12-05.tgz".
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1

find /mnt/storage/profiles/ -maxdepth 1 -mindepth 1 -type d | while read d; do tarfile=`echo "$d" | cut -d "/" -f5`; destdir="/local/backupdir"; tar -czvf "$destdir"/"$tarfile"_`date +%F`.tgz -P $d; done

jaimerosario · 2013-12-05 19:18:03 8

Lint Git unstaged PHP files

Checks for syntax errors in PHP files modified in current working copy of a Git repository. Show Sample Output

git status -s | grep -o ' \S*php$' | while read f; do php -l $f; done

ruslan · 2013-12-14 11:47:54 8

Converts all windows .URL shortcuts in a directory to linux (gnome) .desktop shortcuts
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1

find . -name "*.URL" | while read file ; do cat "$file" | sed 's/InternetShortcut/Desktop Entry/' | sed '/^$URL\|\[$/!d' > "$file".desktop && echo "Type=Link" >> "$file".desktop ; done

pholz · 2014-01-30 09:57:08 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
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
215 1320 ./hwebcam048.kopija
215 1320 ./hwebcam048
24 16 ./ac3dlx/lib/tk8.5/ttk/CVS
24 16 ./ac3dlx/lib/tk8.4/CVS
24 16 ./ac3dlx/tcl/CVS
```
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
Immediately put execute permission on any file saved/created in $HOME/bin
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1

inotifywait -mr -e CREATE $HOME/bin/ | while read i; do chmod +x "$(echo "$i" | sed 's/ \S* //')"; done

Sepero · 2014-03-08 19:21:53 6
‹ First < 4 5 6 7 8 > Last ›

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Analyze awk fields

translate and number lines is simpler and you use tr to choose your delimiter (eg for csv files)

append empty line after every line in file.txt

Find usb device in realtime

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

Pretty Print a simple csv in the command line

Splits the input based on commas and prints it in a nice column format. This would not work for CSV rows that have "," between quotes or with newline characters. Use only simple simple csv files.

Remove blank lines from a file using grep and save output to new file

The ^$ within the quotes is a regular expression: ^=beginning of line, $=end of line, with no characters between.

List dot-files and dirs, but not . or ..

Use the builtin ':' bash command to increment variables

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.

xargs for builtin bash commands

Similar to xargs -i, but works with builtin bash commands (rather than running "bash -c ..." through xargs)

ssh to machine behind shared NAT

Useful to get network access to a machine behind shared IP NAT. Assumes you have an accessible jump host and physical console or drac/ilo/lom etc access to run the command. Run the command on the host behind NAT then ssh connect to your jump host on port 2222. That connection to the jump host will be forwarded to the hidden machine. Note: Some older versions of ssh do not acknowledge the bind address (0.0.0.0 in the example) and will only listen on the loopback address.

Generate Random Passwords

If you want a password length longer than 6, changing the -c6 to read -c8 will give you 8 random characters instead of 6. To end up with a line-feed, use this with echo: # echo `< /dev/urandom tr -dc _A-Z-a-z-0-9 | head -c6` Modern systems need higher strenght, so add some special characters: # < /dev/urandom tr -dc '12345!@#$%qwertQWERTasdfgASDFGzxcvbZXCVB' | head -c8

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Commands using read (340)

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