When processing text data, you often need to extract everything from a certain field onward. awk makes this straightforward once you understand the mechanics. Basic Syntax The fundamental approach uses awk’s field variables and looping: awk ‘{for(i=N;i<=NF;i++) printf “%s “, $i; print “”}’ file.txt Replace N with the field number you want to start from….
Several methods exist to prepend a prefix string to each line of text. The right approach depends on your input source and performance requirements. Using sed The sed stream editor is the most portable and efficient approach: sed ‘s/^/PREFIX/’ file.txt This uses a substitution command where ^ matches the start of each line and PREFIX…
Several approaches exist to detect active file access in Linux, ranging from simple procfs inspection to sophisticated kernel-level tracking. Using lsof The most straightforward method is lsof (list open files), which shows all files currently open by running processes: lsof /path/to/file This returns process ID, user, file descriptor, and access mode. To check only write…
Monitoring server temperatures is essential for preventing hardware damage and maintaining system stability. Linux provides several tools to query thermal sensors and identify which components are running hot. Using lm-sensors The most reliable approach is lm-sensors, a userspace tool that reads temperature data from kernel drivers: # Install lm-sensors sudo apt install lm-sensors # Debian/Ubuntu…
BAM files store aligned sequence reads in a compressed binary format. Counting reads by chromosome is a common task in genomics workflows—useful for quality control, coverage analysis, and identifying potential sequencing biases. Using samtools idxstats The fastest and most straightforward approach is samtools idxstats, which requires an indexed BAM file: samtools index reads.bam samtools idxstats…
When a Bash script spawns child processes—say script A starts B, which starts C, which runs rsync—you need a way to terminate the entire process tree cleanly. Simply killing the parent leaves orphaned children running in the background. The most reliable approach uses session IDs (SID). By default, child processes inherit the same session ID…
When you need to break up a large gzip file into smaller chunks, you have several practical options depending on your constraints. Using zcat with split The most straightforward approach is to decompress the gzip file and split it simultaneously: zcat large_file.gz | split -b 100M – chunk_ gzip chunk_* This decompresses large_file.gz, pipes it…
The modification time (mtime) indicates when a file’s content was last changed. This is critical for scripting, backups, logging, and dependency tracking in builds. Using stat The stat command is the most reliable tool for retrieving mtime programmatically: stat -c %Y filename This outputs the Unix timestamp (seconds since epoch). For nanosecond precision: stat -c…
In C++, you have several ways to output to standard output and standard error streams. The choice depends on your project’s requirements and whether you’re working with older codebases or modern C++. Using std::cout and std::cerr The standard approach uses the C++ iostream library: #include <iostream> int main() { std::cout << “This goes to standard…
In OCaml, the standard library provides straightforward functions for writing to standard output and standard error. Printing to STDOUT Use print_endline to write a string followed by a newline to standard output: print_endline “hello world!” This function is in the Stdlib module (formerly Pervasives in older OCaml versions) and automatically flushes the output buffer. The…
Perl gives you straightforward ways to send output to both standard output and standard error. Understanding the difference matters — STDOUT handles normal program output, while STDERR carries diagnostics, warnings, and error messages. Separating them lets users redirect, log, or suppress errors independently. Basic Output Methods The simplest approach uses print with filehandles: print STDOUT…
The fundamental distinction between standard output and standard error matters for proper program behavior, logging, and stream redirection. Here’s how to handle both correctly. Basic Approach with fprintf() The simplest method uses fprintf() to write to specific streams: #include <stdio.h> int main() { fprintf(stdout, “This goes to standard output\n”); fprintf(stderr, “This goes to standard error\n”);…
In PHP, STDOUT and STDERR are standard output streams that handle different types of output. STDOUT carries normal program output, while STDERR carries error messages and diagnostic information. Properly directing output to the correct stream is essential for building reliable scripts and applications. Using fwrite() with Stream Handles The most straightforward approach uses fwrite() with…
Understanding file descriptors is fundamental to shell scripting. By default, your shell has three standard streams: STDOUT (FD 1): Standard output, where commands print results STDERR (FD 2): Standard error, where commands print errors and diagnostics STDIN (FD 0): Standard input, where commands read data Basic Output Print to STDOUT: echo “This goes to stdout”…
Go provides straightforward ways to write to standard output and standard error streams. Understanding when and how to use each is essential for building robust applications, especially in containerized and cloud environments where log separation matters. Using the fmt Package The fmt package is the most common approach for printing to STDOUT: package main import…
To get the parent process ID (PPID) of the running process, use the os.getppid() function: import os ppid = os.getppid() print(f”Parent Process ID: {ppid}”) This returns the process ID of the parent process as an integer. On Unix-like systems, this is straightforward. On Windows, the behavior is consistent as well. Accessing Full Process Information For…
To retrieve the parent process ID (PPID) of the current running process, use the getppid() system call. This is the standard and portable approach on Unix-like systems including Linux. #include <stdio.h> #include <unistd.h> int main() { pid_t ppid = getppid(); printf(“Parent process ID: %d\n”, ppid); return 0; } Compile and run: gcc -o get_ppid get_ppid.c…
Every process running on a Unix-like system has a parent process. The parent process ID (PPID) identifies which process spawned the current one — critical information when debugging process hierarchies, managing child processes, or writing robust shell scripts. Built-in variable The simplest approach uses Bash’s $PPID variable: echo $PPID This prints the PPID of the…
Every shell script runs as a process with a unique ID (PID). You need this ID for process management, logging, temporary file naming, and cleanup operations. The $$ variable The special variable $$ expands to the PID of the current shell process: echo $$ This returns a single integer — the PID of your current…
Bash has several native flags that help you trace and validate script execution before and during runtime. Trace mode (-x): Executes the script while printing each command before it runs. bash -x script.sh This prints expanded commands to stderr, showing variable substitution and command execution order. You can enable tracing for specific sections using set…