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macOS command-line tools you might not know about

(saurabhs.org)
2039 points Gadiguibou | 5 comments | 27 Jun 23 12:08 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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klausa ◴[27 Jun 23 12:42 UTC] No.36491947[source]▶
`pbcopy` and `pbpaste` are one of my most-loved in the list.

Dealing with some minified json, switching to iTerm, doing `pbpaste | json_pp | pbcopy` and having a clean output is _so_ nice.

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omginternets ◴[27 Jun 23 13:16 UTC] No.36492265[source]▶
If I had a nickel for each `cat foo.json | jq | pbcopy`, I'd be a rich man :)
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maleldil ◴[27 Jun 23 13:58 UTC] No.36492862[source]▶
That's a useless use of cat. You can use `jq . foo.json | pbcopy` or `jq < foo.json | pbcopy`.
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1. nojs ◴[27 Jun 23 15:50 UTC] No.36494558{3}[source]▶
The “useless cat” meme needs to die. Everyone is aware that most commands accept a file argument, but looking up the arguments and their ordering is annoying and using cat for things like this is just fine.
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2. omginternets ◴[27 Jun 23 15:52 UTC] No.36494590[source]▶
This. "Useless cat" is more useful than "useless file-arg".
3. epcoa ◴[27 Jun 23 16:15 UTC] No.36494899[source]▶
The redirect always works though - that is not a program argument, that is handled by the shell. Apparently not everyone is aware of that.
4. hdb2 ◴[27 Jun 23 17:30 UTC] No.36496086[source]▶
granted, it is a little snarky and maybe the snark isn't appropriate in today's tech environment. but no, things like "useless use of cat" do not need to go away, because they make me better at what I do in little ways. those little ways add up over time.

> but looking up the arguments and their ordering is annoying

you seem to be arguing for complacency. taking your idea to an extreme, why learn to do _anything_ well?

5. burnished ◴[27 Jun 23 17:55 UTC] No.36496387[source]▶
Everyone is not aware, new people are joining all the time.