See most used commands

history|awk '{print $2}'|awk 'BEGIN {FS="|"} {print $1}'|sort|uniq -c|sort -r

It will return a ranked list of your most commonly-entered commands using your command history

Sample Output

8 wine
      8 kill
      7 killall
     66 cd
      5 wget
      4 telnet

By: kayowas

2009-04-05 13:40:56

awk sort uniq

Submit An Alternative

What Others Think

Already posted in a shorter version http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/view/869/list-of-commands-you-use-most-often

TheMightyBuzzard · 809 weeks and 4 days ago

@TheMightyBuzzard: I tested both commands under OS X and found kayowas' version more accurate: It correctly handles command such as: ls|grep "foo" where the pipe symbol immediately follows the command.

haivu · 809 weeks and 4 days ago

I bet "cd" and "ls" will be the top commands in most of our readers lists ;)

bytor4232 · 809 weeks and 4 days ago

I think awk '{print $1}' approach is not accurate for counting commands in pipes. So, I propose the following(*) for the most accurate counting: ....|perl -F'\|' -ane 'foreach $pipe (@F) {$pipe=~ /\s*(\w+?)\s/;print $1,"\n";} ' | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr | head Below is comparison of top 10 commands My method kayowas' method 1023 sudo 1003 sudo 970 perl 894 cd 904 cd 657 nano 668 nano 617 perl 624 awk 593 ls 601 ls 498 cat 601 grep 351 history 569 cat 293 man 499 cut 284 head 457 head 276 find (*) print history without the line numbers

alperyilmaz · 809 weeks and 4 days ago

sorry, spaces and tabs are lost, i'm posting the results again: My method ----- kayowas' method 1023 sudo --- 1003 sudo 970 perl ----- 894 cd 904 cd ------- 657 nano 668 nano ----- 617 perl 624 awk ------ 593 ls 601 ls ------- 498 cat 601 grep ----- 351 history 569 cat ------ 293 man 499 cut ------ 284 head 457 head ----- 276 find Notice absence of awk, cut and grep in kayowas' method.

alperyilmaz · 809 weeks and 4 days ago

seofox · 150 weeks and 6 days ago

rahimhh21 · 109 weeks and 3 days ago

anjay love love love love love

dxp48p7x · 101 weeks and 3 days ago

Perfecthomepugs · 101 weeks and 2 days ago

pugpuppies95 · 63 weeks and 2 days ago

donperi1 · 56 weeks and 3 days ago

I discovered a highly valuable resource on how to eSign a PDF at https://www.signnow.com/esignature/how-to-esign-a-pdf. The website offers step-by-step instructions on utilizing their eSignature tool for signing PDF documents online.

yoknutarza · 46 weeks and 3 days ago

What do you think?

Any thoughts on this command? Does it work on your machine? Can you do the same thing with only 14 characters?

You must be signed in to comment.

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

Similar Commands

List all commands present on system

List commands with a short summary

List of top commands from CommandLineFu

Save all commands from commandlinefu.com to plain text sort by vote

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:

» all commands
» commands with 3 up-votes (commandlinefu3)
» commands with 10 up-votes (commandlinefu10)