Commands using sed (1,319)

  • return external ip

    alternative using 'host' Show Sample Output


    -1
    host -t a dartsclink.com | sed 's/.*has address //'
    dartsclink · 2009-08-14 16:11:18 13
  • Recreate all initrd files

    Do this with caution.


    -1
    for kern in $(grep "initrd " /boot/grub/grub.conf|grep -v ^#|cut -f 2- -d-|sed -e 's/\.img//g'); do mkinitrd -v -f /boot/initrd-$kern.img $kern; done
    oernii2 · 2009-08-19 09:53:29 502
  • Reverse DNS lookups

    Reverse DNS lookups, from a file with list of IP's, here the file is called lookups.txt


    -1
    sed 's/\([0-9]*\)\.\([0-9]*\)\.\([0-9]*\)\.\([0-9]*\).in-addr.arpa domain name pointer\(.*\)\./\4.\3.\2.\1\5/' \ lookups.txt
    hemanth · 2009-08-22 09:37:20 4
  • dig this


    -1
    for dnsREC in $(curl -s http://www.iana.org/assignments/dns-parameters |grep -Eo ^[A-Z\.]+\ |sed 's/TYPE//'); do echo -n "$dnsREC " && dig +short $dnsREC IANA.ORG; done
    commandlinefu · 2009-09-01 03:11:18 3
  • search for a file in PATH

    search argument in PATH accept grep expressions without args, list all binaries found in PATH Show Sample Output


    -1
    function sepath { echo $PATH |tr ":" "\n" |sort -u |while read L ; do cd "$L" 2>/dev/null && find . \( ! -name . -prune \) \( -type f -o -type l \) 2>/dev/null |sed "s@^\./@@" |egrep -i "${*}" |sed "s@^@$L/@" ; done ; }
    mobidyc · 2009-09-11 15:03:22 5
  • Print all members of US House of Representatives

    Uses curl to download page of membership of US Congress. Use sed to strip HTML then perl to print a line starting with two tabs (a line with a representative) Show Sample Output


    -1
    curl "http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.shtml" 2>/dev/null | sed -e :a -e 's/<[^>]*>//g;/</N;//ba' | perl -nle 's/^\t\t(.*$)/ $1/ and print;'
    drewk · 2009-09-24 23:37:36 15
  • get Hong Kong weather infomation from HK Observatory

    From Hong Kong Observatory wap site ;) Show Sample Output


    -1
    wget -q -O - 'http://wap.weather.gov.hk/' | sed -r 's/<[^>]+>//g;/^UV/q' | grep -v '^$'
    twfcc · 2009-09-25 02:21:05 6
  • get Hong Kong weather infomation from HK Observatory

    "get Hong Kong weather infomation from HK Observatory From Hong Kong Observatory wap site ;)" other one showed alot of blank lines for me Show Sample Output


    -1
    wget -q -O - 'http://wap.weather.gov.hk/' | sed -r 's/<[^>]+>//g;/^UV/q' | tail -n4
    dakunesu · 2009-09-25 02:36:46 3
  • Prints per-line contribution per author for a GIT repository

    You'll run into trouble if you have files w/ missing newlines at the end. I tried to use PAGER='sed \$q' git blame and even PAGER='sed \$q' git -p blame to force a newline at the end, but as soon as the output is redirected, git seems to ignore the pager.


    -1
    git ls-files | while read i; do git blame $i | sed -e 's/^[^(]*(//' -e 's/^\([^[:digit:]]*\)[[:space:]]\+[[:digit:]].*/\1/'; done | sort | uniq -ic | sort -nr
    pipping · 2009-10-25 09:40:01 4
  • get ^DJI


    -1
    getdji (){local url sedcmd;url='http://finance.yahoo.com/q?d=t&s=^DJI';sedcmd='/(DJI:.*)/,/Day.*/!d;s/^ *//g;';sedcmd="$sedcmd/Change:/s/Down / -/;/Change:/s/Up / +/;";sedcmd="$sedcmd/Open:/s//& /";lynx -dump "$url" | sed "$sedcmd"; }
    twfcc · 2009-10-26 09:00:18 5
  • Get column names in MySQL

    Useful when you need to write e.g. an INSERT for a table with a large number of columns. This command will retrieve the column names and comma-separate them ready for INSERT INTO(...), removing the last comma.


    -1
    mysql -u <user> --password=<password> -e "SHOW COLUMNS FROM <table>" <database> | awk '{print $1}' | tr "\n" "," | sed 's/,$//g'
    maxmanders · 2009-10-29 13:42:17 3
  • Get your external IP address with the best commandlinefu.com command

    This command uses the top voted "Get your external IP" command from commandlinefu.com to get your external IP address. Use this and you will always be using the communities favourite command. This is a tongue-in-cheek entry and not recommended for actual usage.


    -1
    eval $(curl -s http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/matching/external/ZXh0ZXJuYWw=/sort-by-votes/plaintext|sed -n '/^# Get your external IP address$/{n;p;q}')
    jgc · 2009-11-04 16:58:31 6
  • Show Network IP and Subnet

    same thing as the other


    -1
    ipcalc $(ifconfig eth0 | grep "inet addr:" | cut -d':' -f2,4 | sed 's/.+Bcast:/\//g') | awk '/Network/ { print $2 } '
    solarislackware · 2009-12-05 15:00:32 3
  • Extract all urls from the last firefox sessionstore.js file used.


    -1
    sed -e 's/{"url":/\n&/g' ~/.mozilla/firefox/*/sessionstore.js | cut -d\" -f4
    cfajohnson · 2009-12-10 04:31:31 4
  • prints line numbers

    There's too many options to number, My curiosity has forced me to make it using only sed. Maybe useful... or not... :-S


    -1
    sed '/./=' infile | sed '/^/N; s/\n/ /'
    glaudiston · 2009-12-10 16:24:56 6
  • Print line numbers

    Print out contents of file with line numbers. This version will print a number for every line, and separates the numbering from the line with a tab. Show Sample Output


    -1
    sed = <file> | sed 'N;s/\n/\t/'
    jgc · 2009-12-11 14:39:14 3
  • Add a line to crontab using sed

    I needed to add a line to my crontab from within a script and didn't want to have to write my own temporary file. You may find you need to reload the crond after this to make the change take effect. e.g.: if [ -x /sbin/service ] then /sbin/service crond reload else CRON_PID=`ps -furoot | awk '/[^a-z]cron(d)?$/{print $2}'` if [ -n "$CRON_PID" ] then kill -HUP $CRON_PID fi fi The reason I had CRON_HOUR and CRON_MINS instead of numbers is that I wanted to generate a random time between midnight & 6AM to run the job, which I did with: CRON_HOUR=`/usr/bin/perl -e 'printf "%02d\n", int(rand(6))'` CRON_MINS=`/usr/bin/perl -e 'printf "%02d\n", int(rand(60));'`


    -1
    crontab -l | sed -e '$G;$s-$-'"$CRON_MINS $CRON_HOUR"' * * * /usr/bin/command >/dev/null 2>&1-' | crontab -
    JohnGH · 2010-01-07 11:00:05 6
  • wget, tar xzvf, cd, ls

    Combines a few repetitive tasks when compiling source code. Especially useful when a hypen in a file-name breaks tab completion. 1.) wget source.tar.gz 2.) tar xzvf source.tar.gz 3.) cd source 4.) ls From there you can run ./configure, make and etc. Show Sample Output


    -1
    wtzc () { wget "$@"; foo=`echo "$@" | sed 's:.*/::'`; tar xzvf $foo; blah=`echo $foo | sed 's:,*/::'`; bar=`echo $blah | sed -e 's/\(.*\)\..*/\1/' -e 's/\(.*\)\..*/\1/'`; cd $bar; ls; }
    oshazard · 2010-01-17 11:25:47 3
  • keep an eye on system load changes


    -1
    watch -n 7 -d 'uptime | sed s/.*users?, //'
    matthewbauer · 2010-01-17 18:45:52 3
  • Rename all the files in the current directory into their sha1sum


    -1
    find . -maxdepth 1 -type f| xargs sha1sum | sed 's/^\(\w*\)\s*\(.*\)/\2 \1/' | while read LINE; do mv $LINE; done
    foremire · 2010-01-25 20:21:01 11
  • Delete all but latest file in a directory

    xargs deals badly with special characters (such as space, ' and "). To see the problem try this: touch important_file touch 'not important_file' ls not* | xargs rm Parallel https://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/parallel/ does not have this problem.


    -1
    ls -t1 | sed 1d | parallel -X rm
    unixmonkey8046 · 2010-01-28 12:28:18 3
  • Weather on the Command line

    Will return temperature in Fahrenheit of a location (New York City in example). Uses a Google API. Show Sample Output


    -1
    curl -s "http://www.google.com/ig/api?weather=New%20York" | sed 's|.*<temp_f data="\([^"]*\)"/>.*|\1|'
    matthewbauer · 2010-02-08 23:06:48 5
  • Get Google Reader unread count

    Get Google Reader unread count from the command line. You'll have to define your auth token with $auth Or use: curl -s -H "Authorization: GoogleLogin auth=$(curl -sd "Email=$email&Passwd=$password&service=reader" https://www.google.com/accounts/ClientLogin | grep Auth | sed 's/Auth=\(.*\)/\1/')" "http://www.google.com/reader/api/0/unread-count?output=json" | tr '{' '\n' | sed 's/.*"count":\([0-9]*\),".*/\1/' | grep -E ^[0-9]+$ | tr '\n' '+' | sed 's/\(.*\)+/\1\n/' | bc Show Sample Output


    -1
    curl -s -H "Authorization: GoogleLogin auth=$auth" "http://www.google.com/reader/api/0/unread-count?output=json" | tr '{' '\n' | sed 's/.*"count":\([0-9]*\),".*/\1/' | grep -E ^[0-9]+$ | tr '\n' '+' | sed 's/\(.*\)+/\1\n/' | bc
    matthewbauer · 2010-02-11 00:42:57 7
  • Bold matching string without skipping others


    -1
    sed 's/pattern/^[[1m&^[[0m/g'
    rmcb · 2010-02-12 14:05:34 3
  • Move itens from subdirectories to current directory

    You WILL have problems if the files have the same name. Use cases: consolidate music library and unify photos (especially if your camera separates images by dates). After running the command and verifying if there was no name issues, you can use ls -d */ | sed -e 's/^/\"/g' -e 's/$/\"/g' | xargs rm -r to remove now empty subdirectories.


    -1
    ls -d */* | sed -e 's/^/\"/g' -e 's/$/\"/g' | xargs mv -t $(pwd)
    leovailati · 2010-03-01 23:43:26 6
  • ‹ First  < 42 43 44 45 46 >  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

Block all IP addresses and domains that have attempted brute force SSH login to computer
I use iptables. To rate limit connections. Very easy and no ban lists to manage.

Search for an active process without catching the search-process
This does the same thing as many of the 'grep' based alternatives but allows a more finite control over the output. For example if you only wanted the process ID you could change the command: $ ps -ef | awk '/mingetty/ && !/awk/ {print $2}' If you wanted to kill the returned PID's: $ ps -ef | awk '/mingetty/ && !/awk/ {print $2}' | xargs -i kill {}

Use ImageMagick to get an image's properties

send DD a signal to print its progress
Sends the "USR1" signal every 1 second (-n 1) to a process called exactly "dd". The signal in some systems can be INFO or SIGINFO ... look at the signals list in: man kill

Clone all repos from a user with lynx
https://wuseman.github.io/wcloner/

Random line from bash.org (funny IRC quotes)
bash.org is a collection of funny quotes from IRC. WARNING: some of the quotes contain "adult" jokes... may be embarrassing if your boss sees them... Thanks to Chen for the idea and initial version! This script downloads a page with random quotes, filters the html to retrieve just one liners quotes and outputs the first one. Just barely under the required 255 chars :) Improvment: You can replace the head -1 at the end by: $awk 'length($0)>0 {printf( $0 "\n%%\n" )}' > bash_quotes.txt which will separate the quotes with a "%" and place it in the file. and then: $strfile bash_quotes.txt which will make the file ready for the fortune command and then you can: $fortune bash_quotes.txt which will give you a random quote from those in the downloaded file. I download a file periodically and then use the fortune in .bashrc so I see a funny quote every time I open a terminal.

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" }

Alert visually until any key is pressed
I learned a few things reading this command. But I did run into a few issues: 1. On systems that don't use GNU echo (e.g. macOS 10.14.5 Mojave), the e option may not be supported. In this case ANSI escape codes will echoed as text and the terminal will not flash, like this: \e[?5h\e[38;5;1m A L E R T Thu Jun 20 16:31:29 PDT 2019 2. Since the read command strips\ignores leading backslashes, if a user types the backslash character once in the loop, it will not break. Typing backslash twice in a loop will break as expected. 3. The foreground color is set to red (\e[38;5;1m) on every loop. This could be set once before we call while, and then reset once when the loop breaks. 4. Instead of resetting the foreground color when it breaks, the video mode is set back to normal (\e[?5l). This has the effect of leaving the terminal text red until it is manually reset. The alternative I'm proposing here addresses these issues. I tested it on macOS and Arch Linux.

Search for files in rpm repositorys. (Mandriva linux)
Look for an rpm that supplies a specific file that you don't yet have installed. extremely useful when you need something and don't know where it is.. or what its called. note: uses grep like syntax.

scp a good script from host A which has no public access to host C, but with a hop by host B
middlehost allows ssh access from where you are but not securehost. Use nice ssh piping to simulate scp through A => B => C setting up the shell function if left as an exercise for the reader. ;-) Agent forwarding should avoid password typing.

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: