19 Powerful Bash/ZSH/CLI tools and applications you must know

If you're looking for a list of essential Bash/ZSH/CLI tools and applications then this post provides an overview of some of the most useful and powerful command-line tools and applications that can help you be more productive and efficient when working in a terminal environment. The tools and applications covered in the article include popular options like tmux, sed, grep, fzf, ssh and curl among others. Whether you're a beginner or an experienced user, these tools can help you streamline your workflow, automate repetitive tasks, and unlock new capabilities in your command-line environment.

Find following Bash/ZSH/CLI tools and applications:

1. tmux

With tmux, you can split your terminal window into multiple panes, each with its own shell prompt. For example, you can split your terminal into two panes by running the command tmux split-window. You can then switch between the panes using tmux select-pane and execute different commands in each pane.

2. grep

Let's say you have a log file named mylog.txt and you want to find all occurrences of the word "error". You can run the command grep "error" mylog.txt to search for the word "error" in the file and print out all lines that contain it.

3. sed

Let's say you have a file named mytext.txt and you want to replace all occurrences of the word "foo" with "bar". You can run the command sed 's/foo/bar/g' mytext.txt to replace all occurrences of "foo" with "bar" in the file.

4. awk

Let's say you have a file named data.csv containing sales data, and you want to find the total sales for each month. You can run the command awk -F ',' '{sum[$2]+=$3} END {for (month in sum) print month, sum[month]}' data.csv to group the data by month and calculate the total sales for each month.

5. rsync

Let's say you want to copy all files from your local machine to a remote machine using SSH. You can run the command rsync -avz -e ssh /path/to/local/files remoteuser@remotehost:/path/to/remote/files to transfer the files over the network securely.

6. ssh

Let's say you want to connect to a remote machine and execute a command on it. You can run the command ssh remoteuser@remotehost "ls -l" to log in to the remote machine and execute the ls -l command.

7. tar

Let's say you want to create a compressed archive of a directory named mydir. You can run the command tar -czf mydir.tar.gz mydir to create a compressed archive of the directory.

8. find

Let's say you want to find all files in your home directory that have been modified within the last 24 hours. You can run the command find ~ -type f -mtime -1 to search for all files in your home directory that have been modified within the last 24 hours.

9. htop

Let's say you want to monitor the CPU usage of a specific process. You can run the command htop to launch the htop process monitoring tool, and then use the arrow keys to select the process you want to monitor.

10. curl

With curl, you can transfer data to or from a server using various protocols, such as HTTP, FTP, and SCP. For example, you can download a file from a remote server by running the command curl -O http://example.com/myfile.txt. You can also send data to a server using the POST method by running the command curl -X POST -d "param1=value1¶m2=value2" http://example.com/myscript.php.

11. ncdu

With ncdu, you can analyze the disk usage of your system and find large files and directories that are taking up space. For example, you can run the command ncdu / to analyze the disk usage of the root directory and find the largest files and directories.

12. fzf

With fzf, you can search for files and directories using a fuzzy search algorithm, which allows you to quickly find files and directories even if you don't remember their exact names or locations. For example, you can search for a file named "myfile.txt" by running the command fzf -q myfile.txt.

13. tree

With tree, you can display the directory structure of a file system in a tree-like format, which allows you to visualize the hierarchy of files and directories. For example, you can run the command tree / to display the directory structure of the root directory.

14. exa

Exa is a modern replacement for the ls command, with more features and better output formatting. For example, you can run the command exa -l to display the file listing in a long format, which shows more information about each file, such as permissions, owner, and size.

15. ripgrep

Ripgrep is a faster alternative to grep, with support for recursive searching and highlighting. For example, you can search for the word "error" in all files in the current directory and its subdirectories by running the command rg "error" .

16. fd

Fd is a faster alternative to find, with an intuitive syntax and support for ignoring files and directories. For example, you can search for all files in the current directory and its subdirectories that have the extension ".txt" by running the command fd -e txt.

17. bat

Bat is a cat clone with syntax highlighting and paging support, which allows you to read and browse the contents of files more easily. For example, you can display the contents of a file named "myfile.txt" with syntax highlighting and paging support by running the command bat myfile.txt.

18. tldr

With tldr, you can quickly find practical examples of how to use various commands and tools, which can save you time and help you learn new things more easily. For example, you can find an example of how to use the grep command by running the command tldr grep.

19. z

Z is a shell plugin that allows you to quickly navigate to frequently used directories using partial or fuzzy matching. For example, you can navigate to a directory named "myproject" by running the command z myproj.

These are just a few more examples of how these Bash/ZSH/CLI tools and applications can be used. Each of them can be customized and extended using various plugins and configuration options, which allows you to tailor them to your specific needs and preferences.