Efficient Linux at the Command Line: Boost Your Command-Line Skills

Copyright
Table of Contents
Preface
	What You’ll Learn
	What This Book Is Not
	Audience and Prerequisites
	Your Shell
	Conventions Used in This Book
	Using Code Examples
	O’Reilly Online Learning
	How to Contact Us
	Acknowledgments
Part I. Core Concepts
	Chapter 1. Combining Commands
		Input, Output, and Pipes
		Six Commands to Get You Started
			Command #1: wc
			Command #2: head
			Command #3: cut
			Command #4: grep
			Command #5: sort
			Command #6: uniq
		Detecting Duplicate Files
		Summary
	Chapter 2. Introducing the Shell
		Shell Vocabulary
		Pattern Matching for Filenames
		Evaluating Variables
			Where Variables Come From
			Variables and Superstition
			Patterns Versus Variables
		Shortening Commands with Aliases
		Redirecting Input and Output
		Disabling Evaluation with Quotes and Escapes
		Locating Programs to Be Run
		Environments and Initialization Files, the Short Version
		Summary
	Chapter 3. Rerunning Commands
		Viewing the Command History
		Recalling Commands from the History
			Cursoring Through History
			History Expansion
			Never Delete the Wrong File Again (Thanks to History Expansion)
			Incremental Search of Command History
		Command-Line Editing
			Cursoring Within a Command
			History Expansion with Carets
			Emacs- or Vim-Style Command-Line Editing
		Summary
	Chapter 4. Cruising the Filesystem
		Visiting Specific Directories Efficiently
			Jump to Your Home Directory
			Move Faster with Tab Completion
			Hop to Frequently Visited Directories Using Aliases or Variables
			Make a Big Filesystem Feel Smaller with CDPATH
			Organize Your Home Directory for Fast Navigation
		Returning to Directories Efficiently
			Toggle Between Two Directories with “cd -”
			Toggle Among Many Directories with pushd and popd
		Summary
Part II. Next-Level Skills
	Chapter 5. Expanding Your Toolbox
		Producing Text
			The date Command
			The seq Command
			Brace Expansion (A Shell Feature)
			The find Command
			The yes Command
		Isolating Text
			grep: A Deeper Look
			The tail Command
			The awk {print} Command
		Combining Text
			The tac Command
			The paste Command
			The diff Command
		Transforming Text
			The tr Command
			The rev Command
			The awk and sed Commands
		Toward an Even Larger Toolbox
		Summary
	Chapter 6. Parents, Children, and Environments
		Shells Are Executable Files
		Parent and Child Processes
		Environment Variables
			Creating Environment Variables
			Superstition Alert: “Global” Variables
		Child Shells Versus Subshells
		Configuring Your Environment
			Rereading a Configuration File
			Traveling with Your Environment
		Summary
	Chapter 7. 11 More Ways to Run a Command
		List Techniques
			Technique #1: Conditional Lists
			Technique #2: Unconditional Lists
		Substitution Techniques
			Technique #3: Command Substitution
			Technique #4: Process Substitution
		Command-as-String Techniques
			Technique #5: Passing a Command as an Argument to bash
			Technique #6: Piping a Command to bash
			Technique #7: Executing a String Remotely with ssh
			Technique #8: Running a List of Commands with xargs
		Process-Control Techniques
			Technique #9: Backgrounding a Command
			Technique #10: Explicit Subshells
			Technique #11: Process Replacement
		Summary
	Chapter 8. Building a Brash One-Liner
		Get Ready to Be Brash
			Be Flexible
			Think About Where to Start
			Know Your Testing Tools
		Inserting a Filename into a Sequence
		Checking Matched Pairs of Files
		Generating a CDPATH from Your Home Directory
		Generating Test Files
		Generating Empty Files
		Summary
	Chapter 9. Leveraging Text Files
		A First Example: Finding Files
		Checking Domain Expiration
		Building an Area Code Database
		Building a Password Manager
		Summary
Part III. Extra Goodies
	Chapter 10. Efficiency at the Keyboard
		Working with Windows
			Instant Shells and Browsers
			One-Shot Windows
			Browser Keyboard Shortcuts
			Switching Windows and Desktops
		Web Access from the Command Line
			Launching Browser Windows from the Command Line
			Retrieving HTML with curl and wget
			Processing HTML with HTML-XML-utils
			Retrieving Rendered Web Content with a Text-Based Browser
		Clipboard Control from the Command Line
			Connecting Selections to stdin and stdout
			Improving the Password Manager
		Summary
	Chapter 11. Final Time-Savers
		Quick Wins
			Jumping Into Your Editor from less
			Editing Files That Contain a Given String
			Embracing Typos
			Creating Empty Files Quickly
			Processing a File One Line at a Time
			Identifying Commands That Support Recursion
			Read a Manpage
		Longer Learning
			Read the bash Manpage
			Learn cron, crontab, and at
			Learn rsync
			Learn Another Scripting Language
			Use make for Nonprogramming Tasks
			Apply Version Control to Day-to-Day Files
		Farewell
Appendix A. Linux Refresher
	Commands, Arguments, and Options
	The Filesystem, Directories, and Paths
	Directory Movement
	Creating and Editing Files
	File and Directory Handling
	File Viewing
	File Permissions
	Processes
	Viewing Documentation
	Shell Scripts
	Becoming the Superuser
	Further Reading
Appendix B. If You Use a Different Shell
Index
About the Author
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