10 Practical Bash Commands to Simplify Complex Tasks

Powerful Bash Commands Every Developer Should Know

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Bash one-liners are a game-changer for anyone who wants to get things done efficiently in the terminal. Below are several examples of “complex” operations that are still wrapped in one-liner Bash commands.

1. Finding and Processing Log Files

This command searches recursively for .log files under /var/log and prints lines containing "ERROR":

find /var/log -type f -name "*.log" -exec grep -H "ERROR" {} \;

Breakdown:

• find locates files by name and type.
• -exec … {} ; executes grep on each file found.
• grep -H prints matching lines with filenames.

2. Comparing Sorted Contents of Two Files

This command compares two files after sorting them, using process substitution:

diff <(sort file1.txt) <(sort file2.txt)

Breakdown:

• Process substitution <(command) treats the output of sort as if it were a file.
• diff then compares these sorted outputs.

3. Calculating the Sum of…