Miscellaneous cli tools

Updated: 23 September 2024

Build and execute command lines from standard input.

Display the contents of all files called conn.cfg.php

find . -name 'conn\.cfg\.php' | xargs cat

Updated: 12 February 2026

Compare two files ignoring spaces and tabs (but not newlines, seemingly)

diff -w file1.csv file2.csv

Compare two directories

diff --brief --recursive ~/Desktop/bu ~/docs

Compare two directories but ignore differences in /.git

diff --brief --recursive ~/code/ai-client/ ~/code/ai-client/ | sed '/\/\.git/d'

Updated: 28 June 2023

Copy files (often just compiled) into destination locations, setting attributes.

install my_util /home/alice/.local/bin/my_util

Updated: 07 October 2025

uname – print system information.

Print the machine hardware name

uname -m

Print the kernel name

uname -s

An example with all options

# -s, --kernel-name
printf '\nkernel name\n'
uname -s

# -n, --nodename
printf '\nnetwork node hostname\n'
uname -n

# -r, --kernel-release
printf '\nkernel release\n'
uname -r

# -v, --kernel-version
printf '\nkernel version\n'
uname -v

# -m, --machine
printf '\nmachine hardware name\n'
uname -m

# -p, --processor
printf '\nprocessor type\n'
uname -p

# -i, --hardware-platform
printf '\nhardware platform\n'
uname -i

# -o, --operating-system
printf '\noperating system\n'
uname -o

Updated: 23 May 2023

Send a signal to a process. The default signal for kill is TERM.

Kill a process

kill <process id>

Updated: 21 May 2023

Change file timestamps.

View access, modify, change and birth timestamps

stat filename

Change only the access time

touch -a filename

Change only the modification time

touch -m filename

Updated: 24 April 2023

Show only the 10 most recent files in a directory:

ls -t | head

Updated: 23 April 2023

Search through a directory of csv files and display the results in a table:

grep --color=always -h -r "70\.00" my-csv-files | sed "s/^[ \t]*//" | column -t -s,

• --color=always preserve match colour, even after piping.
• -h do not show filenames.
• -r search through all files in directories.
• sed "s/^[ \t]*//" remove leading whitespace from lines.
• -t create a table.
• -s, specify the separator to use.

Updated: 16 May 2024

Make a symbolic link points-to-foo which points to foo

ln -s foo points-to-foo