Category: Dev Stuff

  • Supercharge Your Clipboard with a Shell Function for iTerm2

    Supercharge Your Clipboard with a Shell Function for iTerm2

    Well, I’ve been playing with ChatGPT more, and I had ChatGPT (GPT-4) write this blog post for me. I told it that I was going to give it some of my blog posts to determine my writing style, and to have it write me a blog post about this bash function. It’s …. meh … not really “my style” but whatever.

    The idea of this shell function is to integrate with iTerm2’s proprietary escape sequences to allow you to pipe content right to your clipboard. I’m using the name pbcopy from MacOS so that I don’t need to think about it, and can use pbcopy anywhere. Now I can work on a remote server and cat stupid-stuff.log | pbcopy and get a copy of it locally to mess with, without having to click and drag or download the file. Super lazy ❇

    Enjoy the AI blog post:


    Hey folks, today we’re going to explore a neat shell function that can make your life a lot easier when you’re working in iTerm2 on macOS. The purpose of this function is to make the built-in pbcopy command work seamlessly in iTerm2, even when the command isn’t available in your shell environment.

    Without further ado, let’s dive into the code:

    # pbcopy via iTerm2
    function pbcopy() {
    	if which pbcopy >/dev/null 2>&1; then
    		pbcopy "$@"
    	else
    		# Replace ^[ with the ASCII escape character
    		local start="\e]1337;CopyToClipboard\a"
    		local end="\e]1337;EndCopy\a"
    		printf "${start}$(cat)${end}"
    	fi
    }
    Code language: PHP (php)

    You might be wondering how this magic works. Let’s break it down step by step:

    1. The function first checks if the pbcopy command is available in your shell environment using the which command. If it is, it simply calls the built-in pbcopy command with the provided arguments.
    2. If the pbcopy command isn’t available, the function creates two local variables, start and end, containing special escape sequences that iTerm2 understands.
    3. The printf command is then used to concatenate the start escape sequence, the contents of the input (read using cat), and the end escape sequence. This formatted string is what gets sent to iTerm2.

    When iTerm2 receives this specially formatted string, it recognizes the escape sequences and takes care of copying the text between them to the system clipboard.

    And that’s it! With this function in your shell environment, you can copy text to your clipboard using pbcopy without any hassle, whether the command is natively available or not. To use this function, simply add it to your shell startup file (like .bashrc or .zshrc), and you’re good to go.

    In a practical scenario, let’s say you’re working on a project and you want to share the contents of a log file with a colleague. Instead of manually opening the log file, selecting its content, and copying it to your clipboard, you can use this shell script to streamline the process. With the pbcopy function added to your shell startup file, simply open your terminal and run the command cat logfile.txt | pbcopy. This command will read the content of the logfile.txt file and pipe it directly to the pbcopy function, which in turn places the content into your clipboard. Now you can easily paste the log file content into an email, chat application, or any other medium you choose, all without leaving the comfort of your terminal. This not only saves time but also enhances your overall productivity when working with text-based data in a command-line environment.

    In conclusion, this shell function is a fantastic little tool to enhance your iTerm2 experience on macOS. I hope you find it as useful as I do. As always, if you have any questions or comments, feel free to drop them below. Happy coding!


    Happy coding, indeed 🤖

  • More Garbage Sysadmin: Reboot Linux Server on Kernel Panic

    More Garbage Sysadmin: Reboot Linux Server on Kernel Panic

    Just like restarting a server when the memory is low, I’ve had a recent problem with kernel panics on my Raspberry Pi, and I’ve found a terrible solution to fix it: Just reboot.

    Setting the /proc/sys/kernel/panic file contents to a non-zero integer will reboot the server on kernel panic after that many seconds.

    Because I’m lazy, I asked ChatGPT to write me up a startup script to do this for me, and here’s what I have now:

    To set the panic timeout value on Ubuntu Server 20.04 and later versions, you can create a systemd service unit file.

    Here are the steps to create a systemd service unit file:

    1. Open a terminal window on your Ubuntu Server.
    2. Create a new service unit file with the following command:

      sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/panic-timeout.service

      This will open a new file named panic-timeout.service in the nano text editor with superuser privileges.
    3. Add the following lines to the file:
    [Unit]
    Description=Panic Timeout
    
    [Service]
    Type=oneshot
    ExecStart=/bin/bash -c "echo 60 > /proc/sys/kernel/panic"
    
    [Install]
    WantedBy=multi-user.target
    Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

    This service unit file sets the panic timeout to 60 seconds.

    1. Save the file by pressing Ctrl+O, then exit nano by pressing Ctrl+X.
    2. Reload the systemd daemon to recognize the new service unit file with the following command:

      sudo systemctl daemon-reload
    3. Enable the service unit file to run at boot time with the following command:

      sudo systemctl enable panic-timeout.service
    4. Reboot the server to test the service unit file. After the server reboots, the panic-timeout.service will automatically run the echo command and set the panic timeout to 60 seconds.

    That’s it! With these steps, you can set the panic timeout value on the latest versions of Ubuntu Server.

    Well there you have it! Don’t forget to follow along for more terrible ideas!

  • Get First Date of Week in Google Sheets, When the Week of the Year is Related to the Row Number

    Get First Date of Week in Google Sheets, When the Week of the Year is Related to the Row Number

    *phew* what a title

    For a recent project, I wanted to set up a Google Sheet that tracked something daily/weekly. I wanted one column to show the starting day of the week to help keep me on track, and I ended up with this:

    I used ChatGPT to help me make the formula to determine the first day of the week, indexed to the current row:

    =DATE(YEAR(TODAY()), MONTH(DATE(YEAR(TODAY()),1,1)+(ROW()-2)*7-WEEKDAY(DATE(YEAR(TODAY()),1,1))+1), DAY(DATE(YEAR(TODAY()),1,1)+(ROW()-2)*7-WEEKDAY(DATE(YEAR(TODAY()),1,1))+1))

    This is how ChatGPT explains how the function works:

    This Google Sheets function returns the date that corresponds to the first day of the week for a given row number. The row number is specified by the ROW() function, which returns the row number of the current cell.

    The function uses the following steps to calculate the date:

    1. It uses the YEAR(TODAY()) function to get the current year.
    2. It uses the DATE(YEAR(TODAY()),1,1) function to get the first day of the current year (e.g. January 1).
    3. It uses the WEEKDAY(DATE(YEAR(TODAY()),1,1)) function to get the day of the week of the first day of the year as a number (e.g. 1 for Monday, 2 for Tuesday, etc.).
    4. It uses the (ROW()-2)*7 expression to calculate the number of days to skip from the first day of the year to get to the desired week. For example, if the ROW() function returns 2, then the expression will evaluate to 0, which means that no days need to be skipped. If the ROW() function returns 3, then the expression will evaluate to 7, which means that one week needs to be skipped.
    5. It uses the DATE(YEAR(TODAY()),1,1)+(ROW()-2)*7-WEEKDAY(DATE(YEAR(TODAY()),1,1))+1 expression to calculate the date that corresponds to the first day of the week for the given row number.
    6. It uses the MONTH(DATE(YEAR(TODAY()),1,1)+(ROW()-2)*7-WEEKDAY(DATE(YEAR(TODAY()),1,1))+1) function to get the month of the calculated date.
    7. It uses the DAY(DATE(YEAR(TODAY()),1,1)+(ROW()-2)*7-WEEKDAY(DATE(YEAR(TODAY()),1,1))+1) function to get the day of the month of the calculated date.
    8. It uses the DATE() function to combine the year, month, and day into a single date.

    For example, if the ROW() function returns 2 and the current year is 2022, the function will return the date January 3, 2022. If the ROW() function returns 3 and the current year is 2022, the function will return the date January 10, 2022.

    It took a lot of trial and error, and manual adjustments to get the function to work, and it was really fun to play with ChatGPT and work together to get this working. While I could have trial and errored myself to the end functionality eventually, this did end up saving me quite a bit of time.

    If you, random Internet stranger, want to use this function yourself, but your rows aren’t lined up the same as mine, you’ll just need to adjust the (ROW()-2) type areas to change the row offset you’re currently starting at.

  • Quick Tip: Bash CLI params

    Quick Tip: Bash CLI params

    While working on a bash script, I stumbled upon what I think may be the cleanest and simplest way to add CLI params to a bash script so far:

    https://stackoverflow.com/questions/192249/how-do-i-parse-command-line-arguments-in-bash/14203146#14203146

    This lets you use short (-V), long (--version), space separated (--user john), and equal separated (--user=john) arguments.

    It’s not perfect, but for a quick bash script hack, I’ve found it very useful!

  • Nano: The One True Editor

    Nano: The One True Editor

    Forget about vi/vim/edlin. Nano is the only editor that you need in the console. Sure, it may not be perfect, but with a few extra steps in .nanorc it can really be a great experience. Here’s my .nanorc with some comments showing what’s changed:

    ## Automatically indent a newly created line to the same number of tabs and/or spaces as the previous line (or as the next line if the previous line is the beginning of a paragraph).
    unset autoindent
    
    ## Use bold instead of reverse video
    set boldtext
    
    ## Save the last hundred search strings and replacement strings and executed commands, so they can be easily reused in later sessions.
    set historylog
    
    ## Display line numbers to the left of the text area.
    set linenumbers
    
    ## Enable mouse support, if available for your system. When enabled, mouse clicks can be used to place the cursor, set the mark (with a double click), and execute shortcuts. The mouse will work in the X Window System, and on the console when gpm is running. Text can still be selected through dragging by holding down the Shift key.
    set mouse
    
    ## Save the cursor position of files between editing sessions. The cursor position is remembered for the 200 most-recently edited files.
    set positionlog
    
    ## Use a tab size of number columns. The value of number must be greater than 0. The default value is 8.
    set tabsize 4
    
    ## Default Syntax Highlighting
    include "/usr/share/nano/asm.nanorc"
    include "/usr/share/nano/autoconf.nanorc"
    include "/usr/share/nano/awk.nanorc"
    include "/usr/share/nano/c.nanorc"
    include "/usr/share/nano/changelog.nanorc"
    include "/usr/share/nano/cmake.nanorc"
    include "/usr/share/nano/css.nanorc"
    include "/usr/share/nano/debian.nanorc"
    include "/usr/share/nano/default.nanorc"
    include "/usr/share/nano/elisp.nanorc"
    include "/usr/share/nano/fortran.nanorc"
    include "/usr/share/nano/gentoo.nanorc"
    include "/usr/share/nano/go.nanorc"
    include "/usr/share/nano/groff.nanorc"
    include "/usr/share/nano/guile.nanorc"
    include "/usr/share/nano/html.nanorc"
    include "/usr/share/nano/java.nanorc"
    include "/usr/share/nano/javascript.nanorc"
    include "/usr/share/nano/json.nanorc"
    include "/usr/share/nano/lua.nanorc"
    include "/usr/share/nano/makefile.nanorc"
    include "/usr/share/nano/man.nanorc"
    include "/usr/share/nano/mgp.nanorc"
    include "/usr/share/nano/mutt.nanorc"
    include "/usr/share/nano/nanorc.nanorc"
    include "/usr/share/nano/nftables.nanorc"
    include "/usr/share/nano/objc.nanorc"
    include "/usr/share/nano/ocaml.nanorc"
    include "/usr/share/nano/patch.nanorc"
    include "/usr/share/nano/perl.nanorc"
    include "/usr/share/nano/php.nanorc"
    include "/usr/share/nano/po.nanorc"
    include "/usr/share/nano/postgresql.nanorc"
    include "/usr/share/nano/pov.nanorc"
    include "/usr/share/nano/python.nanorc"
    include "/usr/share/nano/ruby.nanorc"
    include "/usr/share/nano/rust.nanorc"
    include "/usr/share/nano/sh.nanorc"
    include "/usr/share/nano/spec.nanorc"
    include "/usr/share/nano/tcl.nanorc"
    include "/usr/share/nano/tex.nanorc"
    include "/usr/share/nano/texinfo.nanorc"
    include "/usr/share/nano/xml.nanorc"Code language: PHP (php)

  • Quick Tip: Export WordPress SQL output via WP-CLI

    Quick Tip: Export WordPress SQL output via WP-CLI

    If for some reason you can’t run wp db query, but need to export SQL output to a CSV or other file, then have a look at this small WP-CLI command I whipped up that should allow this:

    /**
     * Runs a SQL query against the site database.
     *
     * ## OPTIONS
     *
     * 
     * : SQL Query to run.
     *
     * [--format=]
     * : Render output in a particular format.
     * ---
     * default: table
     * options:
     * - table
     * - csv
     * - json
     * - count
     * - yaml
     * ---
     *
     * [--dry-run=]
     * : Performa a dry run
     *
     * @subcommand sql
     */
    public function sql( $args, $assoc_args ) {
         global $wpdb;
     
         $sql     = $args[0];
         $format  = WP_CLI\Utils\get_flag_value( $assoc_args, 'format', 'table' );
         $dry_run = WP_CLI\Utils\get_flag_value( $assoc_args, 'dry-run', 'true' );
     
         // Just some precautions.
         if ( preg_match( '/[update|delete|drop|insert|create|alter|rename|truncate|replace]/i', $sql ) ) {
             WP_CLI::error( 'Please do not modify the database with this command.' );
         }
     
         if ( 'false' !== $dry_run ) {
             WP_CLI::log( WP_CLI::colorize( '%gDRY-RUN%n: <code>EXPLAIN</code> of the query is below: https://mariadb.com/kb/en/explain/' ) );
             $sql = 'EXPLAIN ' . $sql;
         }
     
         // Fetch results from database.
         $results = $wpdb->get_results( $sql, ARRAY_A ); // phpcs:ignore WordPress.DB
     
         // Output data.
         WP_CLI\Utils\format_items( $format, $results, array_keys( $results[0] ) );
    }Code language: PHP (php)

    I’d add an example here, but I don’t have any right now that I can share 😐 I’ll try to find one later (don’t hold your breath on me remembering to do that)

  • phpMyAdmin and MariaDB with Docker

    phpMyAdmin and MariaDB with Docker

    I used to run a MariaDB server on an old Linux machine for working with database dumps and other things, but after moving all of that to a new Raspberry Pi 4, I never really set it back up.

    So instead I thought I’d play with this fancy new Docker stuff all the cool kids are talking about. I ended up getting phpMyAdmin and MariaDB working with Docker on my MacBook Pro.

    Caveat:

    To start up the MariaDB container thing, I ran this command:

    docker run -d \
     -v $HOME:/home/hosthome \
     --name mariadb \
     -e MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=hunter2 \
     -e MYSQL_DATABASE='default_db' \
     mariadbCode language: JavaScript (javascript)

    A few things here you might want to make note of:

    • hunter2 – My MariaDB root password.
    • default_db – The default database created, just to make things easy.
    • $HOME – This attached my local machine’s home directory to the MariaDB container so I can import/export files.

    Secondly, I ran this to start phpMyAdmin and connect it to the Docker container:

    docker run -d \
     --name phpmyadmin \
     --link mariadb:db \
     -p 8081:80 \
     -e UPLOAD_LIMIT='4096M' \
     phpmyadmin/phpmyadminCode language: JavaScript (javascript)

    A few things here you might want to make note of:

    • 8081 – This is the local machine port that I will connect to via HTTP
    • 4096M – The default upload limit, set to 4 Gigs.

    Now, once this done, you should be able to connect to phpMyAdmin via http://localhost:8081/ and do all sorts of terrible things.

    Here’s a few more commands that may come in handy:

    Start a shell in the MariaDB container: docker exec -it mariadb bash

    Import a SQL file: docker exec -i mariadb sh -c 'exec mysql -uroot -phunter2 default_db' < /some/path/on/your/host/all-databases.sql

    Start a MariaDB “mysql” shell: docker exec -it mariadb sh -c 'exec mysql -uroot -phunter2 default_db'

    References that helped me:

  • Converting CSV to SQL

    Converting CSV to SQL

    I was recently working on an issue that required me to dig through gigabytes of CSV files to look for patterns and data points. I had no intention of bringing all of this data in to Excel, because there’s not enough RAM on earth for that to work. Instead I thought it would be easier to dump the data into MariaDB (MySQL would be fine as well) and just write some simple SQL statements.

    There were a few things I tried, such as LOAD DATA INFILE and other SQL type things. Nothing really worked properly, so instead I decided to just convert the CSV files into SQL statements I could import.

    This is a bad idea! Don’t ever let this touch a live production database!

    I wrote this little PHP script to convert all of the CSV files in a directory to SQL:

    <?php
    $files    = glob( './*.{csv}', GLOB_BRACE );
    $db_table = 'csv_table';
    
    foreach ( $files as $file ) {
    	$row       = 0;
    	$handle    = fopen( $file, 'rb' );
    	$row_names = '';
    
    	if ( false !== $handle ) {
    		while ( false !== ( $data = fgetcsv( $handle ) ) ) {
    			$row++;
    			$values = '';
    
    			if ( 1 === $row ) {
    				// Do Header things.
    				$index  = 0;
    
    				echo sprintf( 'DROP TABLE IF EXISTS `%s`;' . PHP_EOL, $db_table );
    				echo sprintf( 'CREATE TABLE `%s` (' . PHP_EOL, $db_table );
    
    				foreach ( $data as $key => $value ) {
    					$index++;
    					$data[ $key ] = strtolower( preg_replace( '/[^A-Za-z0-9]/', '_', $value ) );
    
    					// Add a comma if we're not at the end of the array.
    					if ( count( $data ) !== $index ) {
    						echo sprintf( '	`%s` text NOT NULL,' . PHP_EOL, $data[ $key ] );
    					} else {
    						echo sprintf( '	`%s` text NOT NULL' . PHP_EOL, $data[ $key ] );
    					}
    				}
    
    				echo ') ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8mb4;' . PHP_EOL;
    				$row_names = '(`' . implode( '`,`', $data ) . '`)';
    				continue;
    			}
    
    			foreach ( $data as $key => $value ) {
    				$data[ $key ] = fake_sql_escape( $value );
    			}
    
    			$values = '(\'' . implode( '\',\'', $data ) . '\')';
    
    			echo sprintf( 'INSERT INTO `%s` %s VALUES %s;' . PHP_EOL, $db_table, $row_names, $values );
    		}
    		fclose( $handle );
    	}
    }
    
    function fake_sql_escape( $value ) {
    	// https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1162491/alternative-to-mysql-real-escape-string-without-connecting-to-db/1163091#1163091
    	// Totaly not safe for production!
    	$return = '';
    	$length = strlen( $value );
    
    	for ( $i = 0; $i < $length; ++$i ) {
    		$char = $value[ $i ];
    		$ord  = ord( $char );
    		if (
    			"'" !== $char &&
    			'"' !== $char &&
    			'\\' !== $char &&
    			$ord >= 32 &&
    			$ord <= 126
    		) {
    			$return .= $char;
    		} else {
    			$return .= '\\x' . dechex( $ord );
    		}
    	}
    	return $return;
    }Code language: PHP (php)

    Borrowing the example airtravel.csv from https://people.sc.fsu.edu/~jburkardt/data/csv/csv.html this is what the output looks like:

    DROP TABLE IF EXISTS `csv_table`;
    CREATE TABLE `csv_table` (
    	`month` text NOT NULL,
    	`1958` text NOT NULL,
    	`1959` text NOT NULL,
    	`1960` text NOT NULL
    ) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8mb4;
    INSERT INTO `csv_table` (`month`,`1958`,`1959`,`1960`,`type`) VALUES ('JAN','  340','  360','  417');
    INSERT INTO `csv_table` (`month`,`1958`,`1959`,`1960`,`type`) VALUES ('FEB','  318','  342','  391');
    INSERT INTO `csv_table` (`month`,`1958`,`1959`,`1960`,`type`) VALUES ('MAR','  362','  406','  419');
    INSERT INTO `csv_table` (`month`,`1958`,`1959`,`1960`,`type`) VALUES ('APR','  348','  396','  461');
    INSERT INTO `csv_table` (`month`,`1958`,`1959`,`1960`,`type`) VALUES ('MAY','  363','  420','  472');
    INSERT INTO `csv_table` (`month`,`1958`,`1959`,`1960`,`type`) VALUES ('JUN','  435','  472','  535');
    INSERT INTO `csv_table` (`month`,`1958`,`1959`,`1960`,`type`) VALUES ('JUL','  491','  548','  622');
    INSERT INTO `csv_table` (`month`,`1958`,`1959`,`1960`,`type`) VALUES ('AUG','  505','  559','  606');
    INSERT INTO `csv_table` (`month`,`1958`,`1959`,`1960`,`type`) VALUES ('SEP','  404','  463','  508');
    INSERT INTO `csv_table` (`month`,`1958`,`1959`,`1960`,`type`) VALUES ('OCT','  359','  407','  461');
    INSERT INTO `csv_table` (`month`,`1958`,`1959`,`1960`,`type`) VALUES ('NOV','  310','  362','  390');
    INSERT INTO `csv_table` (`month`,`1958`,`1959`,`1960`,`type`) VALUES ('DEC','  337','  405','  432');Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

    And if you’re too lazy to see what the input CSV looks like (I would be) here it is, in its LGPL glory:

    "Month", "1958", "1959", "1960"
    "JAN",  340,  360,  417
    "FEB",  318,  342,  391
    "MAR",  362,  406,  419
    "APR",  348,  396,  461
    "MAY",  363,  420,  472
    "JUN",  435,  472,  535
    "JUL",  491,  548,  622
    "AUG",  505,  559,  606
    "SEP",  404,  463,  508
    "OCT",  359,  407,  461
    "NOV",  310,  362,  390
    "DEC",  337,  405,  432Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

    There’s a lot of ways that this could be made better, but it works in a quick pinch. If you need something similar, feel free to take this as a starting point.

  • Quick Tip: Looping a command in bash

    Quick Tip: Looping a command in bash

    I recently came across the need to watch my disk space while running a slow program to make sure I didn’t run out. If I did, the command would fail silently and I’d have to start over again.

    This can easily be done with this short snippet:

    watch -n10 bash -c "df -h | ack disk1s5"Code language: JavaScript (javascript)
    Every 10.0s: bash -c df -h | ack disk1s5                                                                                  mbp.local: Mon Jul 20 15:09:51 2020
    
    /dev/disk1s5           488245288  10940872 144033352     8%   488237 4881964643    0%   /

    The important part here is disk1s5, which is the device file for the partition I wanted to watch. If you need to find this, it can be done simply by running the df as a whole:

    $ df
    Filesystem             1K-blocks      Used Available Capacity  iused      ifree %iused  Mounted on
    /dev/disk1s5           488245288  10940872 144035124     8%   488237 4881964643    0%   /
    devfs                        191       191         0   100%      662          0  100%   /dev
    /dev/disk1s1           488245288 331456068 144035124    70%  1379027 4881073853    0%   /System/Volumes/Data
    /dev/disk1s4           488245288   1048596 144035124     1%        1 4882452879    0%   /private/var/vm
    map auto_home                  0         0         0   100%        0          0  100%   /System/Volumes/Data/home
    /dev/disk1s3           488245288    516448 144035124     1%       48 4882452832    0%   /Volumes/RecoveryCode language: PHP (php)

    That is all.

    Photo by Wendy Wei from Pexels