Simpler CLI tools
grep, find, sed, awk are powerful and fast, but their APIs are hard to memorize and sometimes very awkward; so that’s why I use some tools that are slower but are way more user friendly.
Haters gonna hate, and there is definitely a hidden cost on using theses tools (you won’t learn the standard ones); but there is also a huge benefit on the ease of use.
Here are the tools that I use often:
- z
- jump between frequently used folders with ease (must have!).
- ffind
- searches for files by name inside a directory based on pattern.
- spot
- search for files that contains a given string.
- ag
- similar to
spotbut with more features. (worse output on minified files tho) - replace
- search-and-replace on files. It’s similar to
sedbut uses JS RegExp
syntax, modifies files in place & recursive search on directories with-r. - the preview
-pflag is really helpful. - http-server
- basic static server, simpler than starting apache or python SimpleHTTPServer
(and can handle more requests than SimpleHTTPServer). - tldr
- simplified help for common command line tools (man pages are usually verbose and hard to understand).
- greadme
- preview Github README/markdown files locally.
- sloc
- counts SLOC (source lines of code) inside a folder.
- wr
- watch files and run a command when they change
- disparity
- colored file diff, better than
diff(1)when comparing white-spaces,
indentation and line breaks (output is easier to understand).
Not saying these are the best ones for the job, just that they do help me to do what I need. I’m by no means an UNIX/shell expert.
OH: "It is half-assed, but it the right half of the ass."
— Jim Weirich (@jimweirich) January 24, 2011
I hope these tools also help you do your job faster.
Cheers.
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