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Bash Tips @bashtips

Handy tips and tricks for bash. Got suggestions? @bashtips them to us

Joined July 2009
  • Tweets 26
  • Following 6
  • Followers 1,604
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Bash Tips@bashtips
9 Oct 2011
*tap tap* Is this thing still on? Looks like we should start posting tips again. If you'd like to help out, say hello!
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Bash Tips@bashtips
16 Feb 2010
Need to run a command on multiple servers simultaneously? alias dsh="cat ~/nodes.txt | xargs -P0 -I NODE ssh NODE -C"
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Bash Tips@bashtips
14 Nov 2009
Adding bind '"\e[A"':history-search-backward and bind '"\e[B"':history-search-forward to .bashrc makes your up/down keys autocomplete.
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Bash Tips@bashtips
3 Oct 2009
Use ~-/ to refer to the last directory you were in: "cd woo/; cd ../yay/; cp ~-/foo.txt .;" will copy foo.txt from woo/ to yay/
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Bash Tips@bashtips
17 Sep 2009
M-. inserts/cycles through the last argument from previous commands.
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Bash Tips@bashtips
15 Sep 2009
Use C-v [KEY] to insert a literal character. E.g. C-v [TAB] to insert a tab rather than auto-completing - useful when grepping logs.
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Bash Tips@bashtips
11 Sep 2009
!* inserts all the arguments from the previous command.
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Bash Tips@bashtips
5 Sep 2009
Add "shopt -s checkwinsize" to your .bashrc to make sure terminals wrap lines correctly after resizing them.
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Bash Tips@bashtips
18 Aug 2009
Use bash expansion when cp/mv'ing: `cp file{,.bk}` to create "file.bk", `mv file{.bk,}` to replace "file" with "file.bk"
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Bash Tips@bashtips
11 Aug 2009
Insert the last argument of the previous command: !!$. Eg: `touch foo; ls -la !!$` (From @zigdon)
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Bash Tips@bashtips
5 Aug 2009
Add "shopt -s cdspell" to your .bashrc for small typos to be automatically corrected when changing directory.
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Bash Tips@bashtips
3 Aug 2009
curl -u <username> http://twitter.com/statuses/update.xml -d status="Tweet from the cmd-line without exposing your password in history"

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Bash Tips@bashtips
31 Jul 2009
(oops, the original examples should be ^foo^bar and !!:gs/foo/bar, for that output, sorry)
Bash Tips@bashtips
31 Jul 2009
Both replace terms in the last cmd run, so if you'd just run "echo foofoo" the output would be "barfoo" and "barbar" respectively.
Bash Tips@bashtips
31 Jul 2009
Someone asked the difference between ^foofoo^bar and !!:gs/foofoo/bar? The former only replaces the first match, the later all matches.
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Bash Tips@bashtips
31 Jul 2009
Add "set completion-ignore-case on" to your .inputrc to make tab-completion case insensitive.
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Bash Tips@bashtips
29 Jul 2009
Add "shopt -s histappend" and "export PROMPT_COMMAND='history -a'" to your .bashrc and your command history will be saved for all terminals.
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Bash Tips@bashtips
28 Jul 2009
Repeat the entire last command with "!!", handy for running the last command as root, for example "sudo !!"
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Bash Tips@bashtips
27 Jul 2009
Add "bind Space:magic-space" to your .bashrc and any ! combinations will be auto-expanded when you hit space.
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Bash Tips@bashtips
24 Jul 2009
Perform a regex replace on the last command and execute the result, eg !!:gs/foo/bar turns "ls foo" into "ls bar".
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