Bash Tricks and Tips requests

[sealbhach]

Can someone give some commonplace, simple examples of using "find".

.

[james147]

Can someone give some commonplace, simple examples of using "find".

To find a file called example.txt

find -name example.txt

To find any file with the extension ".pdf"

find -name "*.pdf"

To find any file or directory with "pattern" in its name:

find -name "*pattern*"

To find a file with "pattern" in its name in side the directory "/path/to/search"

find /path/to/search -name "*pattern*"

Use -iname instead of -name to ignore the case matching.

The * is important in find, but you cannot let bash try to expand it so you have to escape or quote it.
ie

find -name *.pdf    # Wrong
find -name "*.pdf"  # Right
find -name \*.pdf   # Right

You can also add extra filters which are covered in the man page.

[Qqmike]

This thread is advanced beyond the basics of, say, using Konsole, vs this basic how-to:
http://www.kubuntuforums.net/showthr...inners-3-parts

But I wonder if the following fits in here somehow. Not being any expert on BASH, I was kind of surprised when I ran across this "subtlety" (with the help of kubicle). You see people using cp -r everywhere; but I wonder how many people (beginners) realize this? If you are copying system files to build, say, a bootable flash drive, this becomes very important.

I'll just copy the brief discussion from Part 2 of my How-to here (again, thanks to kubicle):

- - - - -

Hidden folders and files, use of *: shopt -s dotglob
Copying hidden folders (and files)

Consider the statement
cp -r dir1/* dir2
which copies the contents of directory dir1 into directory dir2.
To ensure that the wild card * includes ALL files, including HIDDEN files and HIDDEN folders, you might run it this way:

shopt -s dotglob
cp -r dir1/* dir2

Or, edit your file
~/.bashrc to include the following:

# This ensures that * includes hidden folders and files
shopt -s dotglob

(Then File > Save, File > Quit)

Another way:
cp -RT dir1 dir2
has exactly the same end result as
shopt -s dotglob
cp -r dir1/* dir2

- - - - -

[jlittle]

Gems I wish I'd come across when I first used bash (or ksh, for that matter):

alias path='echo -e ${PATH//:/\\n}' # display $PATH legibly
alias b='cd -' # go back

function e { env | grep -i ${*-.} | sort ; } # sorted, case insensitive, env

Regards, John Little

[SteveRiley]

Someplace I found a very informative webpage explaining, with several examples, why $() is better than backquotes. I'll try to find it later when I'm on my PC.

Here's one: http://wiki.bash-hackers.org/syntax/expansion/cmdsubst

[oshunluvr]

Going to cover this but you might be interest now:
$ cat somefile
$ kate !$

or my preferred method:
$ alias open=kde-open
$ cat somefile
$ open !$

bash history is such a wonderful thing

Great idea.

Done!