| awk [-f progfile] [-Fsep] ['program'] [file[s]] | F |
| Pattern scanning and processing language. Process file[s] or STDIN according to program (or progfile) (setting the record separator to sep). Useful to extract information from tabular data, e.g. count number of shells in use: Example: awk -F: '{print 7}' /etc/passwd | sort | uniq -c | Documentation |
| bunzip2 [file[s]] | F |
| Decompresses all file[s]. Same as bzip2 -d. | |
| bzcat [file[s]] | F |
| Decompress file[s] to STDOUT. Same as bzip2 -cd. | |
| bzip2 [-hcdzl9] [file[s]] | F |
| Compress or expand file[s]. See a complete list of options with -h -c write on standard output -d force decompression of file[s] -z force compression of file[s] -l list compressed file contents -9 set maximum compression block size | |
| cat [-entv] [file[s]] | F |
| Concatenate file[s] and print on the standard output. Display line numbers with -n, line ends with -E, tabs with -T, other nonprinting chars with -v. | Documentation |
| cmp [-l] [-s] file1 file2 | f |
| Compares two (binary) files. Display the first (or with -l all) difference(s). | Documentation |
| cpio -p [-adlmuvLV] [-R id] directory | f |
| Copy files to and from archives. Use normally the more flexible tar command. Useful to copy directory hierarchies from current to new dir: find . -depth -print | cpio -pdlmv new | |
| csplit [options] file pattern[s] | |
| Split a file into sections determined by context lines. See also split. | Documentation |
| cut [-b | -c | -f] list [-d sep] [file[s]] | F |
| Remove sections from each line of file[s]. Cut out columns specified by a comma separated list of ranges n1[-n2], where n is given as byte count (-b), character count (-c) or field number (-f). Fields are separated by TAB or by character sep. | Documentation |
| diff [-biw] [-ceu] [-r] name1 name2 | |
| Compare the contents of files name1 and name2, the contents of file name1 and the same file in directory name2 or all files in directories name1 and name2. Use cmp to compare binary files. The more common options are: -b ignore trailing blanks, treat strings of blanks as equivalent -i ignore the case of letters -w ignore whitespace in comparisons -c produce context diffs -e produce a script for ed that creates name2 from name1 -u produce unified context diffs -r descend recursively directories | Documentation |
| grep [-E|-F] [-chilnqvx] [-e]pattern [-fpatternfile] [--color] [file[s]] | F |
| egrep [-chilnqvx] [-e]pattern [-fpatternfile] [--color] [file[s]] | F |
| fgrep [-chilnqvx] [-e]pattern [-fpatternfile] [--color] [file[s]] | F |
| Print lines matching a pattern (optionally from patternfile). Interpret pattern as regular or (with egrep and grep -E) extended regular expressions or (with fgrep and grep -F) as fixed strings . Print the matched strings in color with --color. -c print a count of matching lines only -h do not print file names, if used with multiple files -i ignore the case of letters -l print only file names with matching lines -n precede each output line by its relative line number in the file -q do not produce output, return with exit status 0 if match was found -v print only lines that do not match -x print only lines that exactly match the whole line | |
| gpg [-c] file | |
| Encrypt (-c) or decrypt a file using the OpenPGP standard. | |
| groff [-mmacro] [-nnum] [-orange] [-Tdev] [file[s]] | F |
| Format documents for printer (default) or display (-Tascii) using a macro package (usually an or andoc). Output only pages in range if -o given. | |
| gunzip [-clrtv] [-S suffix] [file[s]] | F |
| Expand files. Equivalent to gzip -d | |
| gzip [-cdlrtv9] [-S suffix] [file[s]] | F |
| Compress or expand file[s]. See a complete list of options with -h -c write on standard output, keep original files unchanged -d decompress (expand) file[s] -l list compressed file contents -r operate recursively on directories -S use suffix on compressed files -v display file name and compression rate for each file -9 use best (slowest) compression algorithm | Documentation |
| head [-n] [-n|-c n] [file[s]] | F |
| Output the first n lines (default: 10) or the first n bytes (-c) of file[s] | Documentation |
| iconv [-f encoding] [-t encoding] [-o file] [inputfile[s]] | F |
| iconv --list | |
| {} Convert the encoding of given inputfile[s] from one encoding (-f) to another (-t), optionally write output to a file. The list of encodings is displayed using --list. | |
| md5sum [-c] file[s] | F |
| Compute and check MD5 (128 bit) message digest. The output can be used to check (-c) whether the file integrity is still ok. Trivial test: md5sum file | md5sum -c | Documentation |
| nl [options] [file[s]] | F |
| Write file[s] to standard output, with line numbers added. More complex numbering schemes are possible than using cat -n. | Documentation |
| paste [-d separator[s]] [file[s]] | F |
| Merge lines of files line by line into single lines using TAB or separator as delimiter, output goes to STDOUT. | Documentation |
| sed [-n] [-i[suffix]] [-e script] [-f scriptfile] [file[s]] | F |
| Stream editor. Copies file[s] or STDIN to STDOUT by modifying the input according to script. Default output is suppressed with -n. To replace all occurrences of old in file by new in newfile use sed -e 's/old/new/g' file > newfile Can also be done in place using the -i option: sed -i -e 's/old/new/g' file or even with perl: perl -i -pe 's/old/new/g' file | |
| sort [-cmu] [-t sep] [-bdfinr] [-k n1[,n2]] [file[s]] | F |
| Sort, merge (-m) or sequence check (-c) text file[s]. The basic options are -b ignore leading blanks in each line -d consider only blanks and alphanumeric characters in keys -f sort case insensitively -i ignore non printing characters in sorting -n treat field elements to be sorted as numbers -r reverse the sorting direction -t sep Use sep as field delimiter -u output only the first of unique lines The sort fields can be given with -k. In the most general case it has the syntax start_field[.first_char][bdfgiMnr][,end_field[.last_char][bdfgiMnr]] | Documentation |
| split [-lines] [-l lines] [-b bytes[km]] [file [prefix]] | f |
| Split a file into pieces. Store a number of lines (default 1000) or bytes (where k is 1024 and m is 1048576) in each outputfile (named prefixaa,prefixab,..., default xaa,xab,...). | Documentation |
| strings [-a] [-n] [-n n] [file[s]] | f |
| Print the strings of printable characters in binary file[s]. With -a look in all sections of executables for strings. Minimum string length is 4 (or n). | Documentation |
| tail [-f] [-n] [-n|-c n] [file[s]] | F |
| Output the last n lines (default: 10) or the last n bytes(-c) of file[s]. Wait for further records from the input file, if -f given. | Documentation |
| tar [-]mode[options] [archive] [file[s]] | F |
| Archiving utility. The modes (for a complete list refer to the man page) -c create a new archive -r append files to the end of an archive -t list the contents of an archive -u only append files newer than copy in archive -x extract files from an archive can be combined with options -N date only store files newer than date -O extract files to standard output -X file exclude files listed in file -f [host:]file use archive file (on host) -j filter the archive through bzip2 (usually autodetected) -l stay in local file system when creating archive -p extract all protection information of files -v verbosely list files processed -z filter the archive through gzip (usually autodetected) For even more options see tar --help. The remote access (-f host:file) works only if host based authentication is enabled. | Documentation |
| tee [-ai] [file[s]] | F |
| Pass STDIN to STDOUT and make a copy to file[s] (append with -a) | Documentation |
| tkdiff [-h] file1 file2 | P |
| Compare and edit two files using a GUI. See a short help with -h. | |
| tr [-csd] [string1 [string2]] | F |
| Translate or delete chars. Chars in string1 are mapped to chars in string2 or deleted (-d) or repeated chars found in string2 are squeezed to single chars (-s). With -c all chars not in string1 are used instead. For string1 and string2 a range of chars can be given. To convert all chars in file to uppercase chars in newfile use tr a-z A-Z < file > newfile | Documentation |
| uniq [-cdu] [-f fields] [-s chars] [infile [outfile]] | F |
| Remove duplicate lines from a sorted file (by ignoring the first fields or the first chars in comparisons). Only print unique lines (-u), duplicate lines (-d) or precede the output lines with a repetition count (-c). | Documentation |
| unzip [-opts[modifiers]] file[.zip] [list] [-x xlist] [-d exdir] | |
| List, test and extract compressed files in a ZIP archive. See unzip -h or man unzip for details. Provided for interoperability with DOS. | |
| vimdiff file1 file2 [file3] | |
| Edit two or three versions of a file with vim and show differences. There is also gvimdiff based on the GUI version of vim. | |
| wc [-clw] [file[s]] | f |
| Print the number of bytes (-c), words (-w), and lines (-l) in file[s] | Documentation |
| xargs [-pt] [-e[eofstr]] [-i[repstr]] [cmd [args]] | F |
| Build and execute command lines from STDIN. Each input line is appended to cmd [args] and then executed. More efficient than find -exec. -t list (trace) executed commands -p prompt before each command -i [repstr] replace each occurrence of repstr (default {}) with full input line For more options see the man page. Move .log files to .logold files with ls *.log | xargs -ti mv {} {}old | Documentation |
| zcat [file[s]] | F |
| Uncompress file[s] (or STDIN) to STDOUT. Is the same as gunzip -c. | |
| zip [-options] [-b path] [-t mmddyy] [-n suffixes] [zipfile list] [-xi list] | PF |
| Package and compress (archive) files in a ZIP archive. See zip -h or man zip for details. Provided for interoperability with DOS. |