Unique and Lesser-Known Bash Script Tricks

Command Line Hacks for Power Users

Some unique and lesser-known Bash tricks that can enhance your scripting and command-line experience.

So open your terminal and type these commands.

(The Bash tricks I shared are specific to the Bash shell, which is commonly used in Unix-like operating systems such as Linux and macOS)

Process Substitution with Named Pipes (<(...) and >(...))

Process substitution allows you to use the output of a command as a temporary file. This is particularly useful when a command requires a filename as an argument.

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

This compares the sorted versions of two files without creating intermediate files.

Using /dev/tcp and /dev/udp for Network Communications

Bash can perform TCP and UDP network operations without external utilities.

# Check if a port is open
timeout 1 bash -c "</dev/tcp/google.com/80" && echo "Open" || echo "Closed"

This attempts to open a TCP connection to google.com on port 80.

Recursive Globbing with globstar (**)