Please hope me with a bash scripting problem. Involves: command substitution and word splitting. [more inside]
posted by sbutler on Aug 11, 2009 - 11 answers

I'm using a shell script to handle some excel docs by converting to csv and reformatting it a little bit. I'm having some difficulty going on with the next part of the script. Some help would be great. :) [more inside]
posted by fightoplankton on Jun 10, 2009 - 11 answers

I have a podcast that downloads as multiple segments over multiple days. Its format arrives as YYYYMMDD_showcode_segment.mp3; so, for example, one download might result in files as 20090323_goofa_01.mp3 through 20090323_goofa_21.mp3, and also within the same download 20090324_goofa_01.mp3 through 20090324_goofa_21.mp3. What I'm looking for is a Unix script (shell, perl, what have you) that would look at a directory and look at what dates are represented there, and let me join all of the segments together by day. I can use mpgtx -j to do the actual joining; I'm looking for the code that would let the script determine what dates are in the directory and then get each day's segments united into a single MP3 for that day's show.
posted by WCityMike on Mar 25, 2009 - 5 answers

BASH Scripting. I'm trying to do a simple "mv" operation with a not-so-simple filename that contains special characters (as in brackets and hyphens). The filename itself is stored within a variable. The operation fails, and I can understand why, but I don't know how to get around it. [more inside]
posted by Ziggy Zaga on Nov 18, 2008 - 11 answers

Question about changing my terminal prompt (and other matters) in an OS X Bash shell. [more inside]
posted by grumblebee on Oct 15, 2008 - 3 answers

What resources do you guys recommend on learning to BASH script, and also learn from other peoples code? [more inside]
posted by Javed_Ahamed on Oct 11, 2008 - 11 answers

How can I get Quicksilver-style completion in the bash shell? [more inside]
posted by dmd on Jul 11, 2008 - 11 answers

BASHFilter! I've got a simple bash script that I've written to clean out a frequently used NAS. I run it every 30 days, it sets proper permissions, removes extraneous files and directories, but it frequently hangs on paths longer than 255 characters. [more inside]
posted by jackofsaxons on Jun 2, 2008 - 13 answers

Okay I'm trying to set up rtorrent and wtorrent using Debian Etch and this guide. Installs and updates the kernel fine, then I get "bash command not found" when trying to run through the rest of the tutorial. [more inside]
posted by geoff. on May 23, 2008 - 5 answers

OS X Sites folder permissions and a question about flags on the files in bash. What gives? [more inside]
posted by caution live frogs on May 20, 2008 - 7 answers

Faster techniques for grabbing lines of a file and doing text manipulation and arithmetic via shell (or other) scripting? [more inside]
posted by Blazecock Pileon on May 9, 2008 - 20 answers

Should-be-simple Linux timestamped file parsing question. [more inside]
posted by yellowbkpk on Mar 9, 2008 - 7 answers

using bash, i need to split a variable in two, on whitespace, but with just the first word in one variable, and the rest in the second variable. this is a one liner with perl. how in bash? [more inside]
posted by jimjam on Jan 12, 2008 - 19 answers

How can I insert text into an existing PDF using Ghostscript? [more inside]
posted by jackofsaxons on Dec 21, 2007 - 3 answers

How do I restart an X Windows application running on a remote machine, and have it display on that computer's locally-attached display? (I do not want to forward/tunnel it to the machine I'm sitting at.) [more inside]
posted by Kadin2048 on Nov 16, 2007 - 16 answers

How do I get bash to automagically execute a line or two of code at login? [more inside]
posted by nakedcodemonkey on Oct 22, 2007 - 25 answers

I wrote a shell script for an acquaintance that renames Macs (OS 10.4) based on their existing names. It works well, but I'm convinced my code could be more efficient. Where can I make improvements? [more inside]
posted by pmbuko on Aug 29, 2007 - 11 answers

In Linux, what's the simplest way to take a podcast RSS file as input, and output a file containing just the URLs of all the MP3s enclosed in the RSS file? Difficulty: the method must only Bash + GNU tools, Python or Perl, with no non-standard add-on libraries or dependencies required.
posted by Jimbob on May 10, 2007 - 22 answers

I have a bunch of directories of pictures across multiple disks. Many images are duplicated. Additionally, I had to use some disk recovery software to rescue other images and the filenames changed. At the moment, I can't guarantee that all of the filenames are unique. I'd like to weed out the duplicates and then ultimately consolidate everything into iPhoto. I'm talking close to 20,000 pictures. [more inside]
posted by neilkod on Jan 25, 2007 - 13 answers

Stop me hitting my iPod! My 4th gen iPod requires frequent slapping to encourage it to unfreeze (try Googling 'slap+ipod' to see what I mean). What does this particular 'fix' actually do? How do I fix my iPod in a more permanent way? [more inside]
posted by Kiwi on Dec 28, 2006 - 8 answers

How do I get my Linux shell to behave the same when I am using screen, as when I am not using it? [more inside]
posted by davar on Nov 5, 2006 - 11 answers

Linux / Ubuntu / Gnome question - how do I tell Gnome "Hey, the jpg you're using as desktop wallpaper has been updated with a new image. Go reload it and display the new version?" in a Python or Bash script? [more inside]
posted by Jimbob on Sep 26, 2006 - 6 answers

Calling all bash/nix gurus.. please help me! [more inside]
posted by provolot on Aug 8, 2006 - 10 answers

*nix shell "best practices" anyone? [more inside]
posted by furtive on May 31, 2006 - 9 answers

Is there a way to set an environment variable in the unix shell from a python script? Can I set a variable in the shell that executes that same script? For that matter, is there a way for any script to do this? [more inside]
posted by kuatto on Apr 7, 2006 - 8 answers

Calling *NIX shell wizards. [more inside]
posted by ori on Dec 11, 2005 - 33 answers

datascrubbing: I'm using rm -R */*.gif (for example) to get rid of unnecessary files in a directory. There is stuff that's nested about five directories deep that I can't get to using the above command. I'm using the Bash terminal in OS X. specifically, there is a redundant file called "popup" nested in there that I want to get rid of, among others.

Second related problem: is there a way to recursively delete (full) directories, say ones that end in .blob using wildcards? And would I use rmdir or rm -R to do this?

I'm working on a copy of the original, so its ok to experiment a little
posted by mecran01 on Jul 16, 2004 - 18 answers