The bash-stdops project is a collection of helpful Bash scripts, written by James Cherti, that simplify various operations, including file searching, text replacement, and content modification.
The author uses these scripts in conjunction with text editors like Emacs and Vim to automate tasks, including managing Tmux sessions, replacing text across a Git repository, securely copying and pasting from the clipboard by prompting the user before executing commands in Tmux, fix permissions, among other operations.
Table of Contents
- bash-stdops - A collection of Bash helper scripts that facilitate operations
To install bash-stdops scripts system-wide, use the following command:
sudo make installIf you prefer to install the scripts locally in your home directory, you can use the ~/.local/bin directory. This method avoids requiring administrative privileges and keeps the installation isolated to your user environment.
Use the following command to install the scripts into the ~/.local/bin directory:
PREFIX=~/.local make installEnsure that ~/.local/bin is included in your $PATH by adding the following line to your ~/.bashrc:
export PATH=$PATH:~/.local/bin
Instructions for installing dependencies are provided below. Note that not all of these dependencies are mandatory for every script.
# Requirements
sudo apt-get install coreutils parallel ripgrep sed
# Git
sudo apt-get install git
# SSH
sudo apt-get install openssh-client
# Clipboard
sudo apt-get install xclip
# Requirements
sudo dnf install coreutils parallel ripgrep sed git openssh-clients
# Git
sudo dnf install git
# SSH
sudo dnf install openssh-clients
# Clipboard
sudo dnf install xclip
# Requirements
sudo emerge sys-apps/coreutils sys-process/parallel sys-apps/ripgrep sys-apps/sed
# Git
sudo emerge dev-vcs/git
# SSH
sudo emerge net-misc/openssh
# Clipboard
sudo emerge x11-misc/xclip
# Requirements
sudo pacman -S coreutils parallel ripgrep sed
# Git
sudo pacman -S git
# SSH
sudo pacman -S openssh
# Clipboard
sudo pacman -S xclip
The tmux-cbpaste: script enables pasting clipboard content into the current tmux window. It ensures safety by requiring user confirmation before pasting, preventing accidental insertion of data.
This script executes a command in a new tmux window, which functions similarly to a tab in other applications.
- If run within an existing
tmuxsession, it creates a new window in the same session. - If run outside of
tmux, it creates a new window in the first availabletmuxsession. - If the environment variable
TMUX_RUN_SESSION_NAMEis set, the script will create the new window in the specifiedtmuxsession.
Usage:
tmux-run <command> [args...]
Example:
tmux-run bash
Example 2:
tmux-run bash -c htop
The tmux-session script attempts to attach to an existing tmux session. If the session does not exist, it creates a new session with that name.
If no session name is provided, it defaults to creating or attaching to a session named "0".
The walk bash script recursively search the specified directory and print the list of file or directory paths to standard output.
Recursively execute a command on all files listed by the rg --files command. For example, to recursively cat all text files in /etc, use the following command:
walk-run /etc cat {}
({} is replaced with the path to each file.)
Here is an example of how you can combine walk-run and sed to replace "Text1" with "Text2" in a Git repository:
walk-run /path/to/git-repository/ sed -i -e "s/Text1/Text2/g" {}
The sre script replaces occurrences of a specified string or regular expression pattern with support for exact string matching, regular expressions, and case-insensitive matching. Unlike sed, which uses a single argument for replacements, this script allows specifying the text-to-find and text-to-replace as two distinct arguments.
To replace text in the standard input and output the result to the standard output:
echo "text-before" | sre "text-before" "text-after"
To replace text directly in a file (overwriting the file):
sre "text-before" "text-after" file
Here are the sre options:
Usage: sre [-ierdh] <string-before> <string-after>
-i Ignore case when comparing files
-e Use regular expressions instead of exact strings.
-r Use extended regular expressions.
-d Show the sed command
-h Show this help message and exit
Here is an example of how you can combine walk-run and sre to replace Text1 with Text2 in a Git repository:
walk-run /path/to/git-repository/ sre Text1 Text2 {}
Execute sre at the root directory of a Git repository.
(The sre script replaces occurrences of a specified string or regular expression pattern with support for exact string matching, regular expressions, and case-insensitive matching.)
Example usage:
git sre TextBefore TextAfter /path/to/git/repo
(sre also supports regular expressions.)
-
path-tr: This script processes a given file path, extracts the directory and filename, converts the filename using the specifiedtroptions (e.g., to lowercase), and prints the modified full path. Example usage:path-tr /Path/TO/FILE '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]'This will convert the filename to lowercase, producing:/Path/TO/file. -
path-uppercase: This script processes a given file path, extracts the directory and filename, converts the filename to uppercase. Example usage:path-uppercase /Path/TO/FILEThis will convert the filename to uppercase, producing:/Path/to/FILE. -
path-lowercase: This script processes a given file path, extracts the directory and filename, converts the filename to lowercase. Example usage:path-lowercase /Path/TO/FILE. This will convert the filename to lowercase, producing:/Path/TO/file.
This script sets permissions for files or directories:
- If it's a directory: 755
- If it's a file with a shebang (e.g., "#!/bin/bash"): 755
- If it's a file: 644
Usage:
autoperm /path/to/file-or-directory
Print the Path to stdout and exit with the code 0 if it is a binary or text file.
Example usage:
path-is /Path/TO/FILE binary
path-is /Path/TO/FILE textScript to automate common Git commit tasks:
- Automatically add untracked files (prompted),
- Display git diff to the user before committing,
- Commit changes to the Git repository,
- Optionally reuse the previous Git commit message if available.
Usage:
./script_name.sh
Run this script from within a Git repository to automate adding, reviewing, and committing changes.
A script to squash new Git commits between the current branch and a specified branch.
Usage:
./script_name.sh <other-git-branch>
Features:
- Compares the current branch with the specified branch.
- Displays a summary of new commits to be squashed.
- Prompts for confirmation if there are more than 4 commits.
- Automatically squashes all new commits into one, retaining the message of the first commit.
Esa (Easy SSH Agent) simplifies starting ssh-agent, adding keys with ssh-add, and executing commands using the agent.
Usage:
Usage: esa <start|stop|ssh-add|exec>
start: Starts the ssh agent
start: Stop the ssh agent
add: Adds private keys requiring a password with ssh-add
exec: Executes a program using this agent
env: Displays the ssh-agent environment variables
This script repeatedly attempts to check the availability of the SSH server on the host provided as the first argument. It exits with a 0 status upon successfully establishing a connection at least once. Note that it only verifies if the SSH server is reachable and does not provide a shell prompt or execute any commands on the remote host.
Usage:
./script_name.sh <host>
The xocrshot script captures a screenshot using 'scrot', performs optical character recognition (OCR) using 'tesseract' command, and:
- Displays the extracted text in the terminal
- Copies it to the clipboard.
Features:
- Captures a screenshot using the 'scrot' command,
- Performs OCR on the screenshot using Tesseract,
- Displays the extracted text in the terminal,
- Copies the extracted text to the clipboard using 'xclip',
- Provides error handling and cleanup of temporary files,
- Supports notifications using 'notify-send' (if available).
Usage:
xocrshotcbcopy: This script copies the content of stdin to the clipboard.cbpaste: This script reads the contents of the system clipboard and writes it to stdout.cbwatch: Monitor the clipboard and display its content when it changes.
The outonerror script redirects the command's output to stderr only if the command fails (non-zero exit code). No output is shown when the command succeeds.
Here is an example of how to use this script: How to make cron notify the user about a failed command by redirecting its output to stderr only when it fails (non-zero exit code).
This script reads from standard input and executes a command for each line, replacing {} with the content read from stdin. It expects {} to be passed as one of the arguments and will fail if {} is not provided.
This script is an alternative to xargs.
{ echo "file1"; echo "file2"; } | largs ls {}The xargs-loop script processes lines from standard input, executing a specified command for each line and replacing {} in the command with the current line of input. This provides flexibility by using {} as a placeholder, similar to xargs -I {}, but with the ability to handle each line individually. Unlike xargs, which has mutually exclusive -L 1 and -I {} options, xargs-loop combines the benefits of both by enabling placeholder substitution and line-by-line processing.
Usage:
cat input_file | xargs-loop command '{}'
Options:
- The script reads lines from stdin and replaces '{}' with each line in the command.
- The script exits with status 1 if the command does not include '{}' or if any command execution fails.
Copyright (C) 2012-2024 James Cherti
This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program.