#10 Little Known Command Line Tools Every Developer Should Know About

Introduction

As a developer, you probably spend a lot of time working with the command line. It's an essential tool that helps you accomplish a variety of tasks, from installing software to managing your codebase. However, did you know that there are many little-known command line tools that can make your life as a developer even easier? In this article, we'll explore 10 such tools that every developer should know about.

1. fd

The first tool on our list is fd, a simple and fast alternative to the traditional find command. With fd, you can search for files and directories in a specific directory, and it's lightning fast. For instance, instead of typing:

$ find /home/user/projects -name '*.js'

You can type:

$ fd '*.js' /home/user/projects

It will give you the same result, but much faster.

2. fzf

fzf is a fuzzy finder that allows you to search for files, directories, and anything else in your command line history. With fzf, you can quickly find what you're looking for, without having to remember the exact name or location. For example, let's say you want to find a file called "main.py" that you created a while ago. Instead of typing the whole thing out, you can just type:

$ history | fzf

And it will bring up a list of your command history that you can easily search through.

3. tldr

tldr is a community-driven, simplified version of man pages. It provides practical examples and commands for common tasks that you might need on a day-to-day basis. For example, instead of reading a long and complicated man page for the tar command, you can just type:

$ tldr tar

And it will give you a simplified explanation with practical examples.

4. ncdu

ncdu is a disk usage analyzer that allows you to see which files and directories are taking up the most space on your drive. It's a must-have tool for anyone who needs to manage their disk space efficiently. Instead of manually going through your directories and checking their sizes, you can just type:

$ ncdu

And it will give you a clear picture of where your disk space is going.

5. htop

htop is a more user-friendly version of the top command that allows you to monitor your system resources, such as CPU and memory usage, in real-time. It's a powerful tool that is essential for system administrators and developers alike. Instead of just seeing a list of processes, htop shows you a tree of processes that is easier to navigate and understand.

6. ripgrep

ripgrep is another tool that is faster than the traditional grep command. It's optimized for searching through large codebases and provides a more user-friendly output. For instance, instead of typing:

$ grep -r "foo" /path/to/codebase

You can type:

$ rg "foo" /path/to/codebase

And it will give you the same result, but much faster.

7. tree

tree is a simple command that allows you to visualize your directory structure in a tree format. It's a handy tool that can help you get a clear picture of your project's directory structure. Just type:

$ tree /path/to/directory

And it will display the directory structure in a tree format.

8. mtr

mtr is a combination of the ping and traceroute commands that provides a more detailed and interactive view of your network. It's a powerful tool that can help you troubleshoot network issues and identify potential bottlenecks. Instead of just seeing if a server is up, mtr shows you the entire path that your packets are taking through the network.

9. jq

If you work with JSON data, jq is an essential tool that you should know about. It allows you to manipulate and process JSON data from the command line. For example, let's say you have a JSON file and you want to extract just the names of all the users. You can type:

$ cat users.json | jq '.users[].name'

And it will give you a list of all the names in the JSON file.

10. fswatch

fswatch is a tool that allows you to monitor a directory or a file for changes and perform an action when a change occurs. For instance, let's say you're working on a website and you want to automatically reload the browser whenever you make changes to your HTML or CSS files. You can type:

$ fswatch -o . | xargs -n1 -I{} sh -c 'echo "Reloading"; open http://localhost:8000'

And it will automatically reload the browser whenever you make changes to your files.

Conclusion

As you can see, there are many little-known command line tools that can make your life as a developer easier. From faster file searching to more interactive network monitoring, these tools can help you save time and be more productive. So give them a try, and see how they can help you with your development tasks.

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