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100% agree with CTRL-R. It changed my life. Others that I love: screen, pdsh, perl -pi -e 's/find/replace/g' *.txt redis-cli's new ability to have piped in d

100% agree with CTRL-R. It changed my life. Others that I love: screen, pdsh, perl -pi -e 's/find/replace/g' *.txt redis-cli's new ability to have piped in data be the last argument of a command. vim -o file1.txt file2.txt file3.txt (opening multiple files with vim) Using vim instead of less as a pager: cat file.txt | vim -

steve-howard 15y ago
sed -i does the same thing as perl -pi. Though I've not encountered a system that doesn't have both.
- Someone 15y ago
  sed's regular expressions are different from those perl uses (even when using the (¿gnu sed?) flag that tells sed to use extended regular expressions). Especially if you "live in perl", that can be a problem.
- michaelcampbell 15y ago
  Does sed allow in-place file replacement, or do you need to redirect to a different file then cp/mv it over the original? I haven't used it in many years, but sed didn't used to allow this.
  - derwiki 15y ago
    sed -i 's/old/new/g' file
  - 1010010101 15y ago
    Note: "cmds" is one or more s commands. For other commands, if it's a big file, I will just pipe through less (still no temp file) and then save the buffer (to overwrite the original file), instead of using this hack. A hack for in-place editing, for old school sed (no -i): sedi(){ case $# in 0) echo usage: sedi cmds file;; 2) sed -an ' '"$1"'; H; $!d; g; w '"$2"'' $2;; esac; }
sixtofour 15y ago
http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=1723 http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=1723 vimpager. Set vim as your pager. I love reading man pages in syntax-colored vim glory.
- Aissen 15y ago
  Wow! I knew about less.sh (aka vim less), but this seems even more powerful. Installing now!
- dredmorbius 15y ago
  I prefer keeping file viewing and file editing as separate actions. 'most' will colorize bash output as well (it's strictly a pager, in the pg / more / less / most continuum).
  - sashahart 15y ago
    As I recall, vimpager doesn't edit files, it just uses vim to view the file instead of using a different program to view the file.
philjackson 15y ago
Did you know that Ctrl-s will search forwards through the history too? You'll have to switch flow control off first.
- sixtofour 15y ago
  Fantastic. I've always wanted to know what I'm going to do next.
adgar 15y ago
> screen Unless you only use GPL software, there's no reason to not use tmux these days. Well, maybe if you're on HP-UX or something. http://tmux.sourceforge.net/ http://tmux.sourceforge.net/
- gnosis 15y ago
  I've switched from screen to tmux about a year or two ago, after decades of using screen.. and I'm perfectly happy with tmux, as it fits my needs. However, it's not true that screen has no advantages over tmux. Each program has its own strengths and weaknesses. For instance, screen is scriptable via its Lua bindings, tmux is not. Screen has zmodem support built in, tmux does not. There are probably many other examples, since screen has a bazillion features which have been developed over decades, while tmux is relatively new (and its developers don't seem to care to duplicate every one of screen's features).
  - adgar 15y ago
    tmux is scriptable from the shell via its command-line arguments, so any language can script it. It's certainly true that screen does have tons of small old features... but I sort of swept that in with "unless you're using HP-UX or something." zmodem support isn't exactly relevant to the overwhelming majority of programmers, but yes, I admit these things are still relevant to a few niches.
    - gnosis 15y ago
      "tmux is scriptable from the shell via its command-line arguments, so any language can script it." I'm not sure if tmux is scriptable to the same extent that screen is via screen's Lua bindings, as the latter probably exposes many of screen's internals, while scriptability of tmux is limited to what you could do with its command line arguments. I haven't researched the matter, though, so I may well be wrong.
- gcb 15y ago
  Is tmux as available as screen? I often have to fix servers that are not from own group, so all my knowledge is honed around tools that i can find anywhere.
beej71 15y ago
And vim -p file1.txt file2.txt to open them in tabs.
dredmorbius 15y ago
C-R was one of a few watershed moments for me. I discovered it over a decade a go as a cow-orker was flying through commands way faster than was humanly possible. "How did you do that?". And so I learned. It, along with other readline functionality, shell functions, substitutions, expansions, scripts, and the bazillion utilities are what make Linux (and Unix) shell so much more than just "it's like DOS, right?". Yeah, kind of, in the same way that ... a cross between a Prius, a Mack Truck, an Lamborghini, an F-16 fighter, a helicopter, and a freight train are like a pushcart. It's an interface that helps you manage your computers, the things on them, and the things they're connected to. It's also a hugely efficient and effective way to process information and issue commands and controls in a useful way.

steve-howard 15y ago

sed -i does the same thing as perl -pi. Though I've not encountered a system that doesn't have both.

Someone 15y ago
sed's regular expressions are different from those perl uses (even when using the (¿gnu sed?) flag that tells sed to use extended regular expressions). Especially if you "live in perl", that can be a problem.
michaelcampbell 15y ago
Does sed allow in-place file replacement, or do you need to redirect to a different file then cp/mv it over the original? I haven't used it in many years, but sed didn't used to allow this.
- derwiki 15y ago
  sed -i 's/old/new/g' file
- 1010010101 15y ago
  Note: "cmds" is one or more s commands. For other commands, if it's a big file, I will just pipe through less (still no temp file) and then save the buffer (to overwrite the original file), instead of using this hack. A hack for in-place editing, for old school sed (no -i): sedi(){ case $# in 0) echo usage: sedi cmds file;; 2) sed -an ' '"$1"'; H; $!d; g; w '"$2"'' $2;; esac; }

sixtofour 15y ago

http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=1723 http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=1723 vimpager. Set vim as your pager. I love reading man pages in syntax-colored vim glory.

Aissen 15y ago
Wow! I knew about less.sh (aka vim less), but this seems even more powerful. Installing now!
dredmorbius 15y ago
I prefer keeping file viewing and file editing as separate actions. 'most' will colorize bash output as well (it's strictly a pager, in the pg / more / less / most continuum).
- sashahart 15y ago
  As I recall, vimpager doesn't edit files, it just uses vim to view the file instead of using a different program to view the file.

philjackson 15y ago

Did you know that Ctrl-s will search forwards through the history too? You'll have to switch flow control off first.

sixtofour 15y ago
Fantastic. I've always wanted to know what I'm going to do next.

adgar 15y ago

> screen Unless you only use GPL software, there's no reason to not use tmux these days. Well, maybe if you're on HP-UX or something. http://tmux.sourceforge.net/ http://tmux.sourceforge.net/

gnosis 15y ago
I've switched from screen to tmux about a year or two ago, after decades of using screen.. and I'm perfectly happy with tmux, as it fits my needs. However, it's not true that screen has no advantages over tmux. Each program has its own strengths and weaknesses. For instance, screen is scriptable via its Lua bindings, tmux is not. Screen has zmodem support built in, tmux does not. There are probably many other examples, since screen has a bazillion features which have been developed over decades, while tmux is relatively new (and its developers don't seem to care to duplicate every one of screen's features).
- adgar 15y ago
  tmux is scriptable from the shell via its command-line arguments, so any language can script it. It's certainly true that screen does have tons of small old features... but I sort of swept that in with "unless you're using HP-UX or something." zmodem support isn't exactly relevant to the overwhelming majority of programmers, but yes, I admit these things are still relevant to a few niches.
  - gnosis 15y ago
    "tmux is scriptable from the shell via its command-line arguments, so any language can script it." I'm not sure if tmux is scriptable to the same extent that screen is via screen's Lua bindings, as the latter probably exposes many of screen's internals, while scriptability of tmux is limited to what you could do with its command line arguments. I haven't researched the matter, though, so I may well be wrong.
gcb 15y ago
Is tmux as available as screen? I often have to fix servers that are not from own group, so all my knowledge is honed around tools that i can find anywhere.

beej71 15y ago

And vim -p file1.txt file2.txt to open them in tabs.

dredmorbius 15y ago

C-R was one of a few watershed moments for me. I discovered it over a decade a go as a cow-orker was flying through commands way faster than was humanly possible. "How did you do that?". And so I learned. It, along with other readline functionality, shell functions, substitutions, expansions, scripts, and the bazillion utilities are what make Linux (and Unix) shell so much more than just "it's like DOS, right?". Yeah, kind of, in the same way that ... a cross between a Prius, a Mack Truck, an Lamborghini, an F-16 fighter, a helicopter, and a freight train are like a pushcart. It's an interface that helps you manage your computers, the things on them, and the things they're connected to. It's also a hugely efficient and effective way to process information and issue commands and controls in a useful way.