• Generate all the possible combinations of 3-letter strings containing the letters A-Z and put a newline char at the end of each of them:
    echo {a..z}{a..z}{a..z}{a..z}$'\n'
  • Grep multiple strings:
    cat /proc/meminfo | grep -i "write\|dirty"
  • Execute a command for each file that find finds: "find . -name *.mp3 -exec normalize '{}' \;"
  • Parameters given to a script are contained in "$0", "$1", etc... variables.
  • String thingys:
    sed 's/string1/string2/g' Replace string1 with string2
    sed 's/\(.*\)1/\12/g' Modify anystring1 to anystring2
    sed '/ *#/d; /^ *$/d' Remove comments and blank lines
    sed ':a; /\\$/N; s/\\\n//; ta' Concatenate lines with trailing \
    sed 's/[ \t]*$//' Remove trailing spaces from lines
    sed 's/\([\\`\\"$\\\\]\)/\\\1/g' Escape shell metacharacters active within double quotes
    sed -n '1000p;1000q' Print 1000th line
    sed -n '10,20p;20q' Print lines 10 to 20
  • More examples about the usage of sed: http://student.northpark.edu/pemente/sed/sed1line.txt
  • If else condition:
    #!/bin/sh
    BAO=`ps -a -o comm | grep fireflies | grep -v grep`
    if [ -f $BAO]
    then
       #Do here something if BAO is empty
       #Start fireflies
    else
       #If BAO contains something
       #Stop fireflies
    fi
  • Scripts to be executed in /etc/init.d/ have to start with "#!/sbin/runscript" instead of the usual "#!/bin/sh"
  • For loop:
    ==================
    #!/bin/bash
    for ((a=1; a <= 64999 ; a++))
    do
       ps -o cpu -p 20345034 >> outputps
       sleep 5
    done
    exit 0
    ==================
  • Example of substring etc...
    ================================
    #!/bin/bash
    rm outputps
    echo "I am gonna watch this program:" >> outputps
    echo $(ps -Af | grep $1 | grep -v grep | grep -v checkps) >> outputps
    echo "" >> outputps
    PROG2BWATCHED=$1
    for ((a=1; a <= 64999 ; a++))
    do
       VAR=$(ps -Af | grep $PROG2BWATCHED | grep -v grep | grep -v checkps)
       #echo $VAR #FORDEBUG
       CHECKIF=$(echo $VAR | sed 's/ //g')
       CHECKIF=${CHECKIF:0:15}
       #echo "CHECKIF is -"$CHECKIF"-" #FORDEBUG
       if [ -f $CHECKIF ]
       then
          echo "You did not specify a program of program not found!"
       else
          VAR=${VAR:9:20}
          POS=$(echo `expr index "$VAR" " "`)
          FINAL=${VAR:0:POS}
          echo "DO NOT SHUT ME DOWN!"
          echo "watching program: "$PROG2BWATCHED
          #echo "VAR is: "$VAR #FORDEBUG
          #echo "POS is: "$POS #FORDEBUG
          echo "Program s PID: "$FINAL
          echo $(ps -o cpu,nice -p $FINAL | grep -v CP),$(date) >> outputps
          ps -o cpu,nice -p $FINAL | grep -v CP
       fi
       sleep 5
    done
    exit 0
    ================================
  • Creating insert statements
    • Insert "insert into filedata_temp values(" " at the beginning of each line
      cat "$1" | sed 's/^/insert into filedata_temp values("/' > "$1"_temp1.txt
    • Remove the ":"
      cat "$1"_temp1.txt | sed 's/://g' > "$1"_temp2.txt
    • Replace the "     " and the "    " blanks between the fields with ","
      cat "$1"_temp2.txt | sed 's/     /","/g' | sed 's/    /","/g' > "$1"_temp3.txt
    • Replace the EOL with ");
      cat "$1"_temp3.txt | sed 's/.$/");/' > "$1"_temp4.txt
    • Eventually use...
      cat "$1"_temp3.txt | sed 's/$/");/' > "$1"_temp4.txt
      ...if the file does not have a MSDOS EOL
    • Eliminate the first line which contains the header
      tail -n +2 "$1"_temp4.txt > "$1"_ready.txt
    • rm *_temp*
  • Get a substring inside a Bash-script, specifying a fixed start and end character place:
    substring=${YOURVAR:0:3}
  • Get a substring inside a Bash-script, specifying the column, where the columns are delimited by a "space"-character:
    SUPERVAR="ciao bao miao"  
    SUBSTRING=$(echo $SUPERVAR | awk '{n=split($0,tmp," ");print tmp[2]}')
  • Loop through files:

for f in frame*
do
 echo Processing $f and creating transparent-$f
 convert -transparent "rgb(255,255,255)" -fuzz "25%" -format gif $f transparent-$f.gif
done

  • Listing the CPU nice-level/priority of all processes:
    ps -A -o pid,cmd,nice
  • Showing the CPU nice-level/priority of process 1234:
    ps -o pid,cmd,nice -p 1234
  • Raising the CPU priority of process 1234 by 10 (the higher the value the lower the priority - root processes have 0, kernel processes have -20):
    renice 10 -p 1234
  • Setting the I/O priority of process 1234 to 2 (the lower the value the higher the priority) and assigning it to the class 2 (3: idle / 2: best-effort / 1: realtime):
    ionice -c2 -n2 -p 1234
  • Showing the current I/O priority of proces 1234:
    ionice -p 1234