150 unix commands

Ming Tommy Tang

2023-06-23

150 useful unix commands

1. awk '{for(i=NF;i>=1;i--) printf("%s ", $i); print ""}' file: Reverse the order of fields in
each line.

2. awk '!a[$1,$2]++' file: print out unique rows based on the first and second column
3. awk '{print $0}': Print each line as is.
4. awk '{print $NF}': Print the last field of each line.
5. awk '{print NF}': Print the number of fields in each line.

6. awk '{print NR,$0}' file: Number lines in a file with their line numbers.
7. awk '{sum+=$1}END{print sum}' file: Calculate the sum of numbers in a file using AWK.
8. awk '{sum+=$NF}END{print sum}' file: Calculate the sum of values in the last field of a file using
AWK.

9. cal -y: Display a yearly calendar starting Sunday as the first day of the week.
10. cat -A: Display non-printing characters with visible representations.
11. cat -E: Display $ at the end of each line.

12. cat -T: Display tabs as “ˆI” in output.

13. chmod -R +x directory: Add execute permission to all files and directories recursively.
14. chmod -R a-x directory: Remove execute permission for all users from files and directories recur-
sively.

15. chmod -R u=rwX,g=rX,o=rX directory: Set permissions recursively to allow read and write access
for the owner and read access for group and others.
16. chmod a+x script.sh: Add execute permission to a script for all users.
17. chmod u+x script.sh: Add execute permission for the owner to a script.

18. comm -12 file1 file2: Display lines common to both files. Note, file1 and file2 need to be sorted
first.
19. comm -13 file1 file2: Display lines unique to file1 and file2.
20. comm -23 file1 file2: Display lines unique to file1.

21. comm -3 file1 file2: Display lines unique to file1 and file2, excluding common lines.

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22. cut -c N-M: Extract characters from the Nth to the Mth position of each line.
23. cut -c N-: Extract characters from the Nth position to the end of each line.
24. cut -d ',' -f N-M file: Extract fields N to M from each line (using ‘,’ as the delimiter).
25. cut -d ':' -f N file1 file2: Extract the Nth field from multiple files (using ‘:’ as the delimiter).

26. cut -d' ' -f N- file: Extract fields N and beyond from each line (using space delimiter).
27. df -T -h: Display disk space usage along with filesystem type information in a human-readable format.
28. df -T: Display disk space usage along with filesystem type information.

29. df -h: Display disk space usage in a human-readable format.

30. df -i: Display the number of inodes used and available.
31. diff -r dir1 dir2 | grep "Only in" | cut -d':' -f2-: List files that exist only in dir1 or dir2
without the “Only in” prefix.

32. diff -rq dir1 dir2: Recursively compare directories.

33. diff -u --color=always file1 file2 | less -R: Show differences between files in unified context
format with colored output, preserving colors in the less pager.
34. diff -y file1 file2: Show differences between files side by side.

35. diff -u <(sort file1) <(sort file2): Compare sorted files line by line.
36. diff -u <(sort file1) <(sort file2) | grep -v "ˆ[-+] ": Compare sorted files line by line,
excluding lines with only “+” or “-” symbols.
37. diff -uN file1 file2 > diff.patch: Save differences between files in unified context format to a
patch file.
38. diff -y --suppress-common-lines file1 file2 > diff.txt: Save differences between files in
side-by-side format to a file.
39. diff -y --suppress-common-lines file1 file2 | grep "[<>\\-]": Show differences between
files in side-by-side format, displaying only change lines.

40. diff -y --suppress-common-lines file1 file2 | grep -v "|": Show differences between files in
side-by-side format, excluding common lines.
41. du -ch | sort -h: Display the sizes of all files and directories in a human-readable format, sorted by
size.

42. du -ch: Display the total size of a directory along with a summary.
43. du -sh * | sort -h: Display the sizes of all directories and files in the current directory, sorted by
size.
44. du -sh * | sort -h: Display the sizes of all files and directories in a human-readable format, sorted
by size.
45. du -sh: Display the total size of a directory.
46. find . -name "*.txt" -exec mv {} destination/ \\;: Move files with a .txt extension to a des-
tination folder.

47. find . -name "*.txt": Find all files with a .txt extension.

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48. find . -type f -empty: Find empty files.
49. find . -type d -empty -delete: Delete empty directories recursively.
50. find . -type f -exec chmod 644 {} +: Set file permissions to 644 recursively.
51. find . -type f -exec grep -H -c "pattern" {} \\; | grep -v :0$ | cut -d':' -f1- |
xargs -d'\\n' tar -cvf archive.tar: Find files containing a pattern with nonzero occurrences,
then create a tar archive of those files.
52. find . -type f -exec grep -H -c "pattern" {} \\; | grep -v :0$: Find files containing a
pattern with nonzero occurrences.

53. find . -type f -exec grep -l "pattern" {} + | xargs sed -i 's/foo/bar/g': Find files con-
taining a pattern, then replace “foo” with “bar” in those files.
54. find . -type f -name "*.txt" -delete: Delete all .txt files recursively.
55. find . -type f -name "*.txt" -exec grep -H "pattern" {} +: Search for a pattern in all .txt
files, displaying file names.

56. find . -type f -name "*.txt" -exec grep -l "pattern" {} + | xargs sed -i 's/foo/bar/g':
Find files containing a pattern, then replace “foo” with “bar” in those files.
57. find . -type f -name "*.txt" -print0 | xargs -0 grep "pattern": Search for a pattern in
.txt files with null-separated output.

58. grep -A N "pattern" file: Print N lines after matching a pattern.

59. grep -B N -A M "pattern" file: Print N lines before and M lines after matching a pattern.
60. grep -C N "pattern" file: Display N lines of context around a pattern match.

61. grep -R "pattern" directory --include="*.txt": Search for a pattern recursively in a directory,
limiting to .txt files.
62. grep -Rl "pattern" directory: Find files containing a pattern recursively in a directory and display
their names only.
63. grep -o: Only print the matched part of the line.

64. grep -r "pattern" directory --include="*.txt" --exclude-dir="subdir": Search for a pat-

tern recursively in a directory, limiting to .txt files and excluding a subdirectory.
65. grep -r "pattern" directory: Search for a pattern recursively in a directory.
66. grep -r -i "pattern" directory: Search for a case-insensitive pattern recursively in a directory.

67. grep -rL "pattern" directory: Find files not containing a pattern recursively in a directory.
68. grep -v: Invert the match (exclude matching lines).
69. grep -w "word" file: Match whole words only.

70. grep -w -f patterns.txt file: Match whole words from a file of patterns in another file.
71. head -c N file: Display the first N bytes from a file.
72. head -c N: Display the first N bytes of a file.
73. head -n N: Display the first N lines of a file.

74. head -q -n N file1 file2: Display the first N lines from multiple files quietly.

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 75. join -t',' -1 2 -2 1 file1 file2: Join two files based on the second field of the first file and the
first field of the second file (using ‘,’ as the delimiter).
76. join -t',' -j2 -o 1.1,2.2 file1 file2: Join two files based on the second field and display spe-
cific fields from both files.
77. join -t',' -j2 file1 file2: Join two files based on the second field.
78. join -t',' file1 file2: Join two files based on a common field (using ‘,’ as the delimiter). The
files need to be sorted first.
79. less +G: Open a file at the end.
80. less -J: Display file contents with status columns separated by “|” characters.
81. less -i: Ignore case when searching.
82. ls -R: Recursively list all files and directories.
83. ls -l --sort=extension: List files sorted by extension.
84. ls -l --sort=size: List files in long format sorted by size.
85. ls -l --sort=time: List files in long format sorted by modification time.
86. ls -ltr: List files sorted by modification time in reverse order.
87. ls -m: Display the names as a comma-separated list.
88. man -a keyword: Display all manual pages related to a keyword.
89. man -f keyword: Display the short description of a keyword from the manual pages.
90. man -k keyword: Search manual page descriptions for a keyword.
91. man -l filename: Display a specific file as a formatted man page.
92. nl -nln -w3 -s'. ' file: Number lines in a file, three digits wide, without leading zeros, with a
dot-space separator.
93. nl -nrz -w3 file: Number lines in a file, right-aligned, zero-filled, and three digits wide.
94. nl -w3 -s'. ' file: Number lines in a file, three digits wide, with a dot-space separator.
95. nl file: Number lines in a file.
96. paste -d' ' - -: Merge every two lines of a file.
97. paste -d',' file1 file2: Merge two files with a comma delimiter.
98. paste -d'|' file1 file2: Merge two files with a pipe delimiter.
99. paste -s -d',' file: Merge all lines of a file into a single comma-separated line.
100. paste -s: Merge consecutive lines of files into a single line.
101. sed '/ˆ$/d' file: Delete empty lines from a file.
102. sed '/pattern/!d' file: Delete lines not containing a pattern.
103. sed '/pattern/d' file: Delete lines containing a pattern.
104. sed 's/foo/bar/2': Replace the second occurrence of “foo” with “bar” on each line.
105. sed 's/foo/bar/g': Replace all occurrences of “foo” with “bar”.

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106. sed -i '10,20d' file: Delete lines 10 to 20 from a file in-place.
107. sed -i '10,20s/foo/bar/g' file: Replace “foo” with “bar” in lines 10 to 20 of a file in-place.
108. sed -i '10d' file: Delete the 10th line from a file in-place.
109. sed -i 's/foo/bar/2g' file: Replace all occurrences of “foo” with “bar” on each line, starting from
the second occurrence.
110. sed -i 's/foo/bar/g' file: Replace “foo” with “bar” in-place in a file.
111. sed -n '/pattern/!p' file: Print lines not containing a pattern.
112. sed -n '/pattern/{n;p;}' file: Print the line after a pattern match.
113. sed -n '10,20p' file: Print lines 10 to 20 from a file.
114. sed -n '10~2p' file: Print every second line starting from line 10.
115. sort -R file1 file2: Randomly sort lines in multiple files.
116. sort -R file: Randomly sort lines in a file.
117. sort -m file1 file2: Merge and sort multiple files.
118. sort -n file: Sort a file numerically.
119. sort -t' ' -k1,1 -k2n file: Sort a file based on the first field (using space delimiter) and then
numerically on the second field.
120. sort -t',' -k1,1 -k2,2 file: Sort a file based on multiple fields (using ‘,’ as the delimiter) in
lexicographical order.
121. sort -t',' -k2,2 -rn file: Sort a file based on the second field (using ‘,’ as the delimiter) in reverse
numerical order.
122. sort -t',' -k2,2n file: Sort a file based on the second field (using ‘,’ as the delimiter) numerically.
123. sort -t':' -k1,1 -k2,2n -k3,3nr file: Sort a file based on multiple fields (using ‘:’ as the delim-
iter) in lexicographical and numerical order.
124. sort -t':' -k2,2 -n file: Sort a file based on the second field (using ‘:’ as the delimiter) numeri-
cally.
125. sort -u: Sort and remove duplicate lines.
126. tail -F -n +N file: Output appended data as the file grows, starting from line N.
127. tail -F file: Output appended data as the file grows, including rotated files.
128. tail -c N: Display the last N bytes of a file.
129. tail -f file: Output appended data as the file grows.
130. tail -n +N -f file: Output appended data as the file grows, starting from line N.
131. tail -n +N file: Display lines starting from line N to the end of a file.
132. tail -n N: Display the last N lines of a file.
133. tail -q -n N file1 file2: Display the last N lines from multiple files quietly.
134. tar -cvf archive.tar --exclude=pattern file: Create a tar archive excluding files that match a
pattern.

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135. tar -cvf archive.tar files: Create a tar archive of specific files.
136. tar -cvzf archive.tar.gz directory: Create a gzipped tar archive of a directory.
137. tar -czvf archive.tar.gz --exclude-from=exclude.txt directory: Create a gzipped tar
archive of a directory excluding files listed in exclude.txt.
138. tar -czvf archive.tar.gz --exclude="*.log" directory: Create a gzipped tar archive of a di-
rectory excluding .log files.
139. tar -czvf archive.tar.gz directory: Create a gzipped tar archive of a directory with verbose
output.
140. tar -xvf archive.tar --strip-components N: Extract a tar archive while stripping N leading com-
ponents from file paths.
141. tar -xvf archive.tar --wildcards "*.txt": Extract only .txt files from a tar archive.
142. tar -xvf archive.tar.gz: Extract a tar archive with verbose output.
143. tar -xvzf archive.tar.gz: Extract a gzipped tar archive.
144. tr '[:lower:]' '[:upper:]': Convert text to uppercase.
145. tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]': Convert text to lowercase.
146. tr -cd '[:alnum:]' < inputfile: Remove all non-alphanumeric characters from a file.
147. tr -d '[:space:]' < inputfile: Remove all whitespace characters from a file.
148. tr -d '\\n' < inputfile > outputfile: Remove all newline characters from a file.
149. tr -d '\\r' < inputfile > outputfile: Remove carriage return characters from a file.
150. tr -s ' ' < inputfile > outputfile: Squeeze multiple spaces into a single space in a file.
151. tr -s '\\n' < inputfile > outputfile: Squeeze multiple consecutive newlines into a single new-
line in a file.
152. uniq -c -d: Count and display only duplicate lines.
153. uniq -d: Only print duplicate lines.
154. uniq -u: Only print unique lines.
155. wc -L file: Find the length of the longest line in a file. (this ignores the newline)
156. wc -l: Count the number of lines in a file.
157. wc -m: Count the number of characters in a file.
158. wc -w -l file: Count the number of words and lines in a file.
159. wc -w file1 file2: Count the number of words in multiple files.
160. wc -w: Count the number of words in a file.
161. xargs -I {} command {} arg1: Execute a command with a specific argument.
162. xargs -P N command: Run N instances of a command in parallel.
163. xargs -n N command: Run a command with N arguments at a time from standard input.
164. xargs -n1 command: Execute a command with one argument at a time.