Useful bash commands for frontend development

1. Navigation

pushd [path | ..]

pushd User/Documents
# do stuff

popd

popd
# we're back to the directory we started in

pwd

pwd
# display paht of current working directory

2. Output

cat [−u] [file...]

cat package.json
# display the content of file(s)

tac [options]... [file]...

tac package.json
# cat backwards (starting from the end)

less [options]

less package.json
# page through text one screenful at a time

tail [options]

tail package.json
# output the last part of file (10 lines by default)

head <file>

head package.json
# display first 10 lines of file content

cat <file> | pbcopy

cat .env | pbcopy
# copy file content to clipboard

wc

wc -c file.txt # prints the number of characters in file.txt 
$ 442 file.txt 
wc -w file.txt # prints the number of words in file.txt
$ 142 file.txt 
wc -l file.txt # prints the number of lines in file.txt
$ 42 file.txt 

cat file.txt | wc -l # prints only the number of lines in file.txt
$ 42

3. Search

find <dir> -name "<file>"

find ./Documents -name "files.*"

grep -rl "<test>" <file>

find ./Documents -name "files.*"

4. History

history

history | grep webpack
# grep your bash history to quickly find instances with webpack

Previous command !!

install package
# after the above execution type
sudo !!
# will become:
sudo install package

5. Files

ls | nl

ls | nl
# List information about files and prepend line number

cp [options]

cp -a /source/. /dest/
# copy source directory to dest

mv [options] source dest

mv apple orange.doc
# rename the file apple as orange.doc

mv orange.doc ~/Documents/orange.doc
# move orange.doc to the Documents folder

du -sh *

du -sh *
# list files and folders with their sizes

6. Variables

printenv [option] [variable]

printenv
# List the names and values of all environment variables 

env [option] [variable]

env
# Display, set, or remove environment variables, Run a command in a modified environment. 

7. Rest

w [-hi] [user ...]

w
# Display who is logged in and what they are doing. 

ipconfig getifaddr en0

# Display IP address you can access from diferent devices in development mode