Here is a little stuff from me for all UNIX/Linux users out there. What are your favorite ways to displaying files while working at shell prompt? Here is my list (according to task):
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Display text files
- cat – Display text file ( don’t use, go for less)
- less – Display text file, move forward or backward
- head -Display top of the file
- tail – Display bottom of the file
$ tail -f /var/log/message - zless – Display compressed or plain text file, no need to use pipe.
$ zless /usr/share/man/man1/ls.1.gz - rev – Display file lines in reverse from last character to first
$ tail -2 /etc/passwd | rev
eslaf/nib/:subd/nur/rav/::111:601:x:subegassem - tac – Display file lines in reverse order
$ tac /etc/passwd | less
Display MS-Word file
- antiword {.doc file} – Display MS-Word file
- catdoc {.doc file} – Reads MS-Word file and display its content as plain text on screen
$ catdoc /tmp/db-2-releasenotes.doc | less
Note use ‘apt-get install’ command to install both catdoc & antiword.
Display PDF file
- pdftohtml – Program to convert pdf files into html, xml and png images and then display them using text browser such as elinks or lynx.
$ pdftohtml DB2-HOWTO.pdf
$ lynx DB2-HOWTO.html
OR
$ elinks DB2-HOWTO.html
Display Images in text browser (under xterm)
- w3m – Display images in text browser, for example:
$ w3m http://cybrciti.biz/nixcraft/forum/
Display Man pages
w3mman – an interface to the reference manuals, you can search via keyword, section wise etc.
As you see some of above commands are extremely useful on remote Linux/UNIX/BSD server. That’s it folks, time to show me yours 🙂
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