Friday, December 28, 2007

unix utilities you should know

xxd, which usually accompanies VIM, is a hexdump program with a difference: it also converts hexdumps *back* into binaries.

The manpage says it was written in 1997. So people (like me) whose formative experiences with unix were all way before 1997 may be surprised to find this program is already in their Linux or Cygwin toolbox.

Comments:

one of my favorites: lsof
and: how long has this been called "Where There's Fish, There's Cats"
I named it that a couple of nights ago, when I was slightly tipsy. It's a reference to a story that I supposed I am now required to post in its entirety.
i haven't googled the phrase yet, but it reminds me of a pinball game we used to play in a bar in the late 80's / early 90's called "bad cats". if you hit the jackpot the game sang "sea-foo-ood" in a kind of chorus.
That is much, much better than where it actually comes from.