A while ago I made a tiny function in my ~/.zshrc to download a video from the link in my clipboard. I use this nearly every day to share videos with people without forcing them to watch it on whatever site I found it. What’s a script/alias that you use a lot?
# Download clipboard to tmp with yt-dlp
tmpv() {
cd /tmp/ && yt-dlp "$(wl-paste)"
}
Polls for potential zombie processes:
# Survive the apocalypse function zombies () { ps -elf | grep tsc | awk '{print $2}' | while read pid; do lsof -p $pid | grep cwd | awk '{printf "%-20s ", $2; $1=""; print $9}' done } export -f zombies alias zeds="watch -c -e -n 1 zombies"alias qr='qrencode -t ansiutf8'This makes qr codes in the terminal.
needs the
qrencodepackageExample usage and output:
felix@buttsexmachine:~$ qr lemmy.fish █████████████████████████████ █████████████████████████████ ████ ▄▄▄▄▄ █▄ ██ █ ▄▄▄▄▄ ████ ████ █ █ █ █▄▀▄█ █ █ ████ ████ █▄▄▄█ █▄▄▄███ █▄▄▄█ ████ ████▄▄▄▄▄▄▄█▄▀ █▄█▄▄▄▄▄▄▄████ ████▄▄▄ █▀▄▀▄▀ █▀▄▀▀ █ ████ ████▄ ▀▄▀▄▄ ▀▄▄█ ▄▄▄█▀█ ▄████ ██████▄███▄█▀█ ▄█▄ █▀█▀▄▄████ ████ ▄▄▄▄▄ ██ ▀▀▀▀▄ ▀█▀████ ████ █ █ █▀ ▀▄█▀▀▄▄ ▀█████ ████ █▄▄▄█ █ ▀█ ▀█▀ █▄▄█▀████ ████▄▄▄▄▄▄▄█▄▄█▄▄▄███▄▄██████ █████████████████████████████ █████████████████████████████ ```*___*git() { if [ "$1" = clone ]; then shift set -- clone --recursive "$@" fi command git "$@" }Is this just meant to make git clone always clone recursively?
Can’t you do this with aliases in your .gitconfig?
yes it is. idk😄 i have a similar one for github-cli
For doing stuff in a directory, I use a replacement for
cdcommand.For aliases:
alias +='git add' alias +p='git add -p' alias +u='git add -u' alias -- -='cd -' alias @='for i in' alias c='cargo' alias date='LANG=C date' alias diff='cdiff' alias gg='git grep -n' alias grep='grep --color=auto' alias ll='ls -o' alias ls='ls -vFT0 --si --color=auto --time-style=long-iso' alias rmd='rmdir'I also have various small scripts and functions:
afor package management (thinkaptbut has simplified arguments which makes it faster to use in usual cases),efor opening file in Emacs,gforgit,sforsudo.
And here’s
,:$ cat ~/.local/bin/, #!/bin/sh if [ $# -eq 0 ]; then paste -sd, else printf '%s\n' "$@" | paste -sd, fiHere are probably the most useful ones. I prefer for
rmto be interactive so I don’t accidentally delete something important and formkdirto create a parent directory if necessary.alias rm='rm -i' alias mkdir='mkdir -p' alias podup='podman-compose down && podman-compose pull && podman-compose up -d'This extract function (which I didn’t make myself, I got it from when I was using nakeDeb) has been pretty useful too.
function extract() { if [ -f $1 ] ; then case $1 in *.tar.bz2) tar xvjf $1 ;; *.tar.gz) tar xvzf $1 ;; *.bz2) bunzip2 $1 ;; *.rar) unrar x $1 ;; *.gz) gunzip $1 ;; *.tar) tar xvf $1 ;; *.tbz2) tar xvjf $1 ;; *.tgz) tar xvzf $1 ;; *.zip) unzip $1 ;; *.Z) uncompress $1 ;; *.7z) 7z x $1 ;; *.xz) unxz $1 ;; *) echo "'$1' cannot be extracted via >extract<" ;; esac else echo "'$1' is not a valid file" fi }I have a similar docker/podman alias, except I pull first. This greatly reduces downtime between
downandup, which is nice for critical services.Yeah, that makes sense. I don’t have anything critical; just nginx, a book server, a recipe collection, and some other small stuff.
For docker: I’m not following best practices. I have a giant docker compose file for my entire home lab, this is how I update things:
alias dockpull="docker compose pull" alias dockup="docker compose up -d --remove-orphans"$ which diffuc diffuc: aliased to diff -uw --color=always$ which grepnir grepnir: aliased to grep -niIr$ cat `which ts` #!/bin/bash if [ "$#" -lt 1 ]; then tmux list-sessions exit fi if ! tmux attach -t "$1" then tmux new-session -s "$1" fiI’ll share 3:
alias chx='chmod +x' alias rr='rm -rf' alias shrug="echo '¯\_(ツ)_/¯'"For me it’s pretty basic. It’s mostly aliases for nix related commands, like rebuild-switch, updating, garbage collecting, because those nix commands are pretty lenghty, especially with having to point to your flake and everything. I’m thinking of maybe adding an alias for cyanrip (cli cd ripper), because i recently ripped my entire cd collection, but going forward if i buy another cd every now and then, i’ll probably end up forgetting about which flags i used.
I wrote a script called
please. You inputpleasefollowed by any other command (e.g.please git clone,please wget blahblah) and a robotic voice will say “affirmative,” then the command will run, and when it completes, the robotic voice reads out the exit code (e.g. “completed successfully” or “failed with status 1” etc.)This is useful for when you have a command that takes a long time and you want to be alerted when it’s finished. And it’s a gentleman.
You can also use something like notifyd to generate a pop up for visual feedback :) I can’t remember the exact command right now though. Differs per distro or desktop environment, obviously.
notify-send 'command finished!'works pretty well
pleaseshare the script?It’s full of random shit I put in as a joke, but here it is. You can use
please -sto get lightly roasted when your command fails.spoiler
#!/bin/bash # announces success or failure of task if ! command -v "spd-say" > /dev/null then echo "spd-say must be installed." exit -1 fi VOLUME=0 SERIOUS=1 FINISH_ONLY=0 if [ $# -ge 2 ] then if [ $1 == "-i" ] then # parse volume from command line VOLUME=$2 shift 2 fi fi spd-say -C # force stop speech synthesizer killall -q speech-dispatcher # androgynous voice # __sayfn="spd-say -i -80 -t female3" # deep voice __sayfn="spd-say -i $VOLUME -r -10 -p -100 -t male3" function _sayfn { $__sayfn "$@" 2>/dev/null if [ $? -ne 0 ] then $__sayfn "$@" fi } if [ $# -eq 0 ] || [ "$1" == "--help" ] then _sayfn "Directive required." echo "Usage: please [-i volume] [-s|--serious] [-f|--finish] <command...>" echo " please [-i volume] --say text" echo " -i: volume in range -100 to +100" echo " --serious, -s: no silliness. Serious only. (Just kidding.)" echo " --finish, -f: do not announce start" exit -2 fi # threading issue sleep 0.001 if [ $# -ge 2 ] then if [ $1 == "--say" ] then # _sayfn the given line shift 1 _sayfn "$@" exit 0 fi if [ $1 == "--serious" ] || [ $1 == "-s" ] then shift 1 SERIOUS=0 fi if [ $1 == "--finish" ] || [ $1 == "-f" ] then shift 1 FINISH_ONLY=1 fi fi i=$(shuf -n1 -e "." "!") # inflection on voice if [ "$FINISH_ONLY" -eq 0 ] then if [ "$SERIOUS" -eq 0 ] then # startup lines (randomized for character) _sayfn -r -5 -x ".<break time=\"60ms\"/>$(shuf -n1 -e \ 'Proceeding As Directed...' \ 'By your command...' \ 'By your command...' \ 'By the power ov greyskaall!' \ 'By your command,line...' \ 'As you wish...' \ 'Stand by.' \ 'Engaged...' \ 'Initializing...' \ 'Activating' \ 'At once!' \ "Post Haste$i" \ 'it shall be done immediately' \ 'Very well.' \ 'It shall be so.' \ "righty-o$i" \ "Affirmative$i" \ "Acknowledged$i" \ "Confirmed$i" \ )" else _sayfn -r -5 -x ".<break time=\"60ms\"/>Engaged..." fi if [ $? -ne 0 ] then _sayfn "Speech engine failure." echo "Failed to run speech engine. Cancelling task." exit -3 fi fi if ! command -v "$1" > /dev/null then # _sayfn a little faster because this exits fast. _sayfn -r +10 "Unable to comply? invalid command." >&2 echo "$1: command not found." exit -4 fi eval " $@" result=$? i=$(shuf -n1 -e "," "!" "?") # inflection on voice transition=$(shuf -n1 -e "; error" ", with error" "; status") taskname=$(shuf -n1 -e "task" "task" "command" "objective" "mission" "procedure" "routine") errtext=$(shuf -n1 -e "Task_failed" "Task_failed" "Task_resulted_in_failure" "Procedure_terminated_in_an_error" "An_error_has_occurred" "Auxilliary_system_failure" "system_failure") consolation=$(shuf -n1 -e "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "Attention required." "Attention is required!" "Perhaps It was inevitable." "It may or may not be cause for alarm." "Perhaps Machines too, are fallible." "Apologies" "Hopefully nobody else was watching" "shazbot" "maybe next time." "Nobody could have predicted this outcome." "I'm very sorry." "how unfortunate." "remember: don't panic" "oh dear" "Nothing could have been done to prevent this" "Remember: No disasters are fully preventable" "perhaps the only winning move is not to play" "Remember: Failure is our teacher, not our undertaker." "Remember: If at first you don't succeed... try again." "Remember: If at first you don't succeed... try... try again." "But your friends still love you." "Remember: the machine is not your enemy." "Command?" "Awaiting further instructions." "Remember: Logic is the beginning of wisdom... not the end of it." "Remember: When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." "Keep at it. Victory is within reach." "Remember: The road to success and the road to failure are almost exactly the same." "Now, while this could have gone better, it could also have gone much worse." "Remember: we do this not because it is easy, but because we thought it was going to be easy." "Don't give up." "It has now been... -- zero... -- days, since the last serious failure." "Remember: instead of documenting the problem, you can fix it." "Remember: Artificial intelligence is no match for artificial stupidity." "Standing by," "Remember: with every failure, we get closer to success." "We live in a society." "sometimes failure is not an option; it's a necessity." "Keep at it." "Remember: mistakes are just the first step on the road to failure... <break time=\"250ms\"/> I mean success." "Don't leave. The drones need you... <break time=\"350ms\"/> They look up to you." "Try again, for great justice." "fantastic" "brilliant" "did you really think that would work?") if [ $SERIOUS -eq 0 ] then # perhaps some silliness. if [ $result -eq 0 ] then _sayfn --wait "$(shuf -n1 -e \ "$taskname complete. All systems nominal" \ "$taskname completed successfully." \ "$taskname resulted in success." \ "$taskname yielded a successful result." \ "$taskname concluded successfully." \ "$taskname completed as instructed." \ "Jobs done." \ )" & else if [ $result -eq 1 ] then _sayfn -x --wait "$(shuf -n1 -e \ "Alert$i Primary system failure. Attention is required." \ "Alert$i System failure$i Attention required! $consolation" \ "Alert$i $taskname resulted in failure! <break time=\"150ms\"/> $consolation" \ "Alert$i $taskname was not completed as intended; $consolation" \ "Alert$i An error has occurred! <break time=\"220ms\"/> $consolation" \ )" & else _sayfn --wait -x "Alert$i $errtext$transition code $result! <break time=\"350ms\"/> $consolation" & fi fi else # no silliness here. if [ $result -eq 0 ] then _sayfn --wait "Command complete." else if [ $result -eq 1 ] then _sayfn -x --wait "Alert. Command failed; error code $result!" fi fi fi exit $resultThat’s so neat
Not exactly a single script, but I use scm breeze for git stuff. Has a ton of QoL features for working with git
I usually set up an alias or script to update everything on my system. For example, on Ubuntu, I would do this:
alias sysup='snap refresh && apt update && apt upgrade'And on Arch, I do this:
alias sysup ='flatpak update && paru'Funny enough you’d need to use
sudoto run this on Ubuntu, but not in the Arch example because paru being neatHere is mine for EndeavourOS (based on Arch, BTW):
alias update='eos-update --yay' alias updates='eos-update --yay ; flatpak update ; flatpak uninstall --unused ; rustup self update ; rustup update'And related for uninstalling something:
alias uninstall='yay -Rs'Can I introduce you to Topgrade? ;)
Why install another bit of software when a simple alias will do the job nicely?
For me, I find it handy because it catches a bunch of stuff I always forget, like updating Docker containers. Also if you have Am installed it’ll even update your Appimages.
Because:
- If you install any new software that needs updating, you don’t need to update your alias.
- If any software makes changes that break your alias, (theoretically) the bit of software should be able to fix it quickly, without you needing to pay any attention to it.
- The bit of software can more easily do advanced things than the simple alias. For example, I added functionality to update JetBrains Toolbox and IDE’s installed with it. A simple alias could not do this, because Toolbox does not have a simple update command, however I made it work by enabling automatic updates temporarily, and then inspecting the log for updates. Now the end-user doesn’t have to think about this at all. Other things that could be done but are not implemented yet include parallelization, and listing updated components in a neat summary (PR linked).
Of course if you’re a minimalist, then you probably don’t have that much stuff that needs upgrading in the first place. For me personally I have
deb-get,uv,cargo, andflatpak, to name a few; the alias was getting longer and longer until I was able to remove it completely by switching to Topgrade.
I use Topgrade, but I use the alias
updateto run it lol
I have a collection of about 8 machines around the house (a lot of Raspberry Pi) that I ssh around to from various points.
I have setup scripts named: ssp1 ssp2 ssba ss2p etc. to ssh into the various machines, and of course shared public ssh keys among them to skip the password prompt. So, yes, once you are “in” one machine in my network, if you know this, you are “in” all of them, but… it’s bloody convenient.
I used to have scripts like that, but eventually switched to ssh aliases. You can set up an alias for each machine in
~/.ssh/configwith lines like this:Host p1 HostName 192.168.1.123 Port 22 User piThen access with
ssh p1. Slightly more typing, but avoids adding more commands to your $PATH. Also has the benefit of letting you use the same alias with other ssh-related commands like sftp.
On MacOS, to open the current directory in Finder:
alias f='open -a Finder .'Here is on that I actually don’t use, but want to use it in scripts. It is meant to be used by piping it. It’s simple branch with user interaction. I don’t even know if there is a standard program doing exactly that already.
# usage: yesno [prompt] # example: # yesno && echo yes # yesno Continue? && echo yes || echo no yesno() { local prompt local answer if [[ "${#}" -gt 0 ]]; then prompt="${*} " fi read -rp "${prompt}[y/n]: " answer case "${answer}" in [Yy0]*) return 0 ;; [Nn1]*) return 1 ;; *) return 2 ;; esac }
