Tricks to remember on the CL

bashTricks.md

Script source path - ${BASH_SOURCE} contains full bath to script

# /path/to/repo/bin/script
BIN_PATH="$(dirname ${BASH_SOURCE})"  # gets 'bin' directory path script is in
DIR_PATH="$(dirname $BIN_PATH)"       # gets the main 'repo' directory path

Rename file by replacing old text pattern with new (overwrite existing)

for f in *.txt ; do echo "${f/old/new}"; done

for f in *.txt; do mv "$f" `echo $f | sed s/old/new/\`; done

Find symlink to same inode

find -L / -samefile path/to/file.txt

Loop through results of find

find | while read directory; do $directory; done

Find modified n*24 hours ago and remove

n="+15"
find /home/directory/*/dir/* -type d -mtime ${n} -prune -exec rm -rfv "{}" \;

Read in password

read -p "Password: " pswd
echo "User pswd was $pswd"

Array Expansion

${list[@]}

Manipulating Strings

Variable prefix/suffix (extension) removal

${0#*.}
${0%.*}

Variable substring

## syntax ##
${parameter:offset:length}

${a:1}    # everything after position 1
${a:0:5}  # offset 0 with length 5

## syntax ##
${parameter:-default}  # set a default if $parameter udefined

${a:-$b}  # output: ${a} ? ${a} : ${b}

Substring Replacement

# Parameter expansion with substring replacement
# It takes the existing variable username in `=${username` then will replace every occurrence `//` of `*= ` with `/...` (nothing).
# NOTE: the closing '/' is implied
username=${username//*= /}

Substring Removal

# Deletes shortest match of $substring from FRONT of $string.
${string#substring}

# Deletes longest match of $substring from FRONT of $string.
${string##substring}

# Deletes shortest match of $substring from BACK of $string.
${string%substring}

# Deletes longest match of $substring from BACK of $string.
${string%%substring}

# Find and remove (replace with nothing) 'chars followed by any number of zeroes'.
echo "$TEST" | sed 's/chars0*//'

Only print the actual match (not the entire matching line), use a substitution.

# Replace whatever comes before and after the match with nothing, then print the whole line (p)
sed -n 's/.*\([0-9][0-9]*G[0-9][0-9]*\).*/\1/p'