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

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
I. Core Concepts
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
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
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
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
II. Next-Level Skills
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
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
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
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
9. Leveraging Text Files
    A First Example: Finding Files
    Checking Domain Expiration
    Building an Area Code Database
    Building a Password Manager
    Summary
III. Extra Goodies
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
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
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
B. If You Use a Different Shell
Index
About the Author