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How the Command-Line Can Empower You

Eric Fung
November 27, 2018

How the Command-Line Can Empower You

Presented live on 2018-11-27 as a webinar.

As a developer, you probably use a modern IDE that lets you write, debug, test, and deploy your code quickly and easily. But your job often includes activities that need to be done outside your IDE, such as working with APIs, creating screenshots, or massaging data. I want to show you how the command-line can simplify, improve, or even automate some of these tasks

I'll provide an overview of utilities that will give you more ways to get your work done, and get it done faster. Using real-world examples, you'll learn how to type less in the terminal, search your files with ease, manipulate images and JSON files, write code automatically, and more. All without needing to point, click, or swipe!

If you are curious about command-line tools, or want to learn more about their awesome capabilities, this talk is for you.

This presentation will focus on software available for macOS computers, but Linux and Windows users will also benefit, as many of the tools mentioned are cross-platform.

Eric Fung

November 27, 2018
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  1. ‣ /remind me Lunch for Gemma at noon ‣ inspect(document.body);

    ‣ efung@host:~$ ls -l ‣ C:\>dir /w Tux image by Larry Ewing [email protected]
  2. Command-line interface: a way of interacting with a computer by

    giving it commands using text How The Command-Line Can Empower You • Eric Fung
  3. Why should I use the command line? ‣ Gets you

    results more quickly ‣ Lets you control the output ‣ Be less reliant on others ‣ Makes you more versatile ‣ Gives you transferable skills How The Command-Line Can Empower You • Eric Fung
  4. What we'll cover ‣ Basic command-line setup ‣ Typing less

    ‣ Navigating folders ‣ Working with Finder and clipboard ‣ Searching files ‣ Integrating with remote APIs ‣ Dealing with JSON data ‣ Manipulating images How The Command-Line Can Empower You • Eric Fung
  5. Terminal: iTerm2 ‣ Extensive features and customization ‣ Favorites: ‣

    ⌘-click to open URLs and files ‣ Highlights all search results ‣ ⌘-; autocompletes from anything on screen How The Command-Line Can Empower You • Eric Fung
  6. Shell: bash ‣ macOS default shell ‣ Widely used →

    lots of support ‣ May want to install newer version How The Command-Line Can Empower You • Eric Fung
  7. Package manager: Homebrew ‣ Many packages available (over 4000+) ‣

    Software, fonts, plugins, GUI apps ‣ Self-healing How The Command-Line Can Empower You • Eric Fung
  8. Tab completion ‣ Autocompletes commands, options, files, directories ‣ Context-sensitive

    ‣ Installed with many Homebrew packages How The Command-Line Can Empower You • Eric Fung
  9. From shell to Finder ‣ open <file> ‣ Equivalent to

    double-clicking on <file> ‣ open . ‣ Opens Finder with current directory ‣ open <url> ‣ Opens default browser to url How The Command-Line Can Empower You • Eric Fung
  10. From Finder to shell ‣ Drag-and-drop file(s) onto Terminal ‣

    Pastes their filename(s), space-separated How The Command-Line Can Empower You • Eric Fung
  11. cd 101 ‣ cd app/src/main/res/layout ‣ cd ../../java ‣ cd

    - ‣ Go to previous directory How The Command-Line Can Empower You • Eric Fung
  12. autojump ‣ Provide fast access to directories further away ‣

    Selects directories based on usage ‣ Caveat: must be visited first How The Command-Line Can Empower You • Eric Fung
  13. autojump ‣ j name ‣ Go to most-used directory containing

    name ‣ jc name ‣ Go to a subdirectory containing name ‣ j name <Tab> ‣ Offers choices when there are multiple matches How The Command-Line Can Empower You • Eric Fung
  14. ripgrep ‣ Supports grep options ‣ Much faster ‣ Knows

    about file types ‣ Respects revision control ignores ‣ Support for emoji ! How The Command-Line Can Empower You • Eric Fung
  15. I/O 101 ‣ Streams: stdin and stdout ‣ Redirection: >

    and < ‣ Pipelines: | How The Command-Line Can Empower You • Eric Fung
  16. Working with Clipboard ‣ pbcopy (⌘-C for the shell) ‣

    Reads from stdin, copies to clipboard ‣ pbpaste (⌘-V for the shell) ‣ Copies contents of clipboard, writes to stdout How The Command-Line Can Empower You • Eric Fung
  17. curl ‣ Comprehensive client for working with Internet protocol transfers

    ‣ "the number of features will make your head spin!" ‣ Supports HTTP, SMTP, IMAP, RTSP, and lots more ‣ Designed to be unattended How The Command-Line Can Empower You • Eric Fung
  18. Debugging endpoints: --include $ curl 'https://search.icons8.com/api/iconsets/v4/search' --include HTTP/2 200 server:

    keycdn-engine date: Thu, 09 Aug 2018 19:39:52 GMT content-type: application/json; charset=utf-8 content-length: 96 cache-control: max-age=604800 expires: Thu, 16 Aug 2018 19:39:52 GMT x-cache: HIT x-shield: active x-edge-location: usch access-control-allow-origin: * accept-ranges: bytes How The Command-Line Can Empower You • Eric Fung
  19. POSTing data to an API $ curl -X POST \

    --header "Content-Type: application/json" \ https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts \ --data-ascii @body How The Command-Line Can Empower You • Eric Fung
  20. gron ‣ Turns JSON into line-oriented data ‣ Then, search

    with tools like ripgrep ‣ Identify individual array elements How The Command-Line Can Empower You • Eric Fung
  21. jq ‣ Powerful, flexible processor ‣ Transform data you have,

    to data you want ‣ JSON, CSV, URI, plain text ‣ Concise syntax ‣ Handles JSON Lines, e.g. log files How The Command-Line Can Empower You • Eric Fung
  22. Example JSON data { "photos": { "page": 1, "pages": 125,

    "total": 100, "photo": [ { "id": "2348183", "title": "Fuzzy cat", "url": "https://example.com/1.jpg" }, … } How The Command-Line Can Empower You • Eric Fung
  23. jq example $ jq -r '.photos.photo' flickr.json [ { "id":

    "2348183", "title": "Fuzzy cat", "url": "https://example.com/1.jpg" }, { "id": "7937001", "title": "Good boi", "url": "https://example.com/2.jpg" }, … ] How The Command-Line Can Empower You • Eric Fung
  24. jq example $ jq -r '.photos.photo | .[]' flickr.json {

    "id": "2348183", "title": "Fuzzy cat", "url": "https://example.com/1.jpg" } { "id": "7937001", "title": "Good boi", "url": "https://example.com/2.jpg" } … How The Command-Line Can Empower You • Eric Fung
  25. Extract values from array of objects $ jq -r '.photos.photo

    | .[] | .title' flickr.json AJH-20180814-467-Edit.jpg East Garston series: quintessential English countryside IMG_20180723_215912_323 P1030365.jpg Frankrijk 2018 Shirts on Sale (+6 03 6143 5225)Contact Us 03 6143 5225 https://t.co/dBTffHWW99 Tratamiento Alternativo Para El Colon Irritable How The Command-Line Can Empower You • Eric Fung
  26. ImageMagick ‣ Suite of command-line utilities ‣ Create, edit, compose,

    or convert bitmaps ‣ Read/write 200 image formats ‣ Handles really large images How The Command-Line Can Empower You • Eric Fung
  27. bash function using IM's montage side_by_side() { montage -background lightgray

    -pointsize 60 \ -label '%t' \ $* \ -tile x1 -geometry '+30+30' \ combined.png } ‣ $* is all the function's arguments ‣ -label '%t' is IM syntax defining label from each argument's base filename How The Command-Line Can Empower You • Eric Fung
  28. bash loop with IM's convert for f in image1.jpg image2.jpg

    image3.jpg; do convert -brightness-contrast -30 \ -gravity SouthWest \ -crop 512x512+0+0 \ $f \ `basename $f .jpg`.cropped.jpg done How The Command-Line Can Empower You • Eric Fung
  29. bash loop with IM's convert for f in image1.jpg image2.jpg

    image3.jpg; do convert -brightness-contrast -30 \ -gravity SouthWest \ -crop 512x512+0+0 \ $f \ `basename $f .jpg`.cropped.jpg done ‣ for loop assigns each filename to variable f ‣ gravity defines origin ‣ basename removes extension, backticks inline result How The Command-Line Can Empower You • Eric Fung
  30. What we've learned ‣ Command-line utilities are powerful tools ‣

    Can be combined in different ways to get stuff done ‣ They can make you more productive ‣ Excellent additions to your developer toolbelt How The Command-Line Can Empower You • Eric Fung
  31. End ‣ Twitter @gnufmuffin • @ShopifyEng ‣ Webinar Recording on

    Zoom ‏ with demo videos ‣ Slides speakerdeck.com/efung ‏ static deck How The Command-Line Can Empower You • Eric Fung
  32. Appendix: How to install (1/2) ‣ iTerm2: full-featured terminal ‣

    Homebrew: package manager ‣ bash completion: completions for macOS builtins ‣ ! 1 bash-completion ‣ autojump (j): navigate directories faster ‣ ! autojump ‣ ripgrep (rg): fast, intelligent search tool ‣ ! ripgrep 1 ! denotes Homebrew package name How The Command-Line Can Empower You • Eric Fung
  33. Appendix: How to install (2/2) ‣ curl: transfer data with

    URLs ‣ ! curl ‣ everything curl book ‣ gron: make JSON line-oriented and searchable ‣ ! gron ‣ jq: transform and query JSON ‣ ! jq ‣ jq manual ‣ jq cookbook ‣ ImageMagick: utilities for image manipulation ‣ ! imagemagick ‣ usage examples How The Command-Line Can Empower You • Eric Fung