To turn off the menu in xterm

Add this to your ~/.Xdefaults file or to /etc/X11/app-defaults/XTerm


xterm*toolBar: false


Excel 2007 'Cannot empty the Clipboard.'

If you drag and drop a cell in Excel 2007 and get a pop error with "Cannot empty the Clipboard.":

Check to see if you have any applications running that interact with the clipboard.

In my case, it was MultiMonitor TaskBar from http://www.mediachance.com/free/multimon.htm
To turn this off:

Right-click on the MultiMonitor TaskBar
-> Click "Properties"
-> Uncheck "Add Multi-Text Clipboard"

There are other solutions for this here:

http://www.online-tech-tips.com/ms-office-tips/cannont-empty-clipboard/

SQLite guis for Windows

I have tried quite a few from:

http://www.sqlite.org/cvstrac/wiki?p=ManagementTools

These are OK:

SQLite2009Pro-v3.6.20.zip
sqlitebrowser-1.3-win.zip
SqliteDev357.zip
SQLiteExpertPersSetup.exe

Multiple field primary key in sqlite

BEGIN TRANSACTION;
CREATE TABLE test_table(
      field1 text not null,
      field2 text not null,
      field3 text not null,
      PRIMARY KEY(field1, field2)
);
INSERT INTO "test_table" VALUES('a', 'a', '1');
INSERT INTO "test_table" VALUES('a', 'b', '2');
INSERT INTO "test_table" VALUES('a', 'c', '3');
COMMIT;

http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers/browse_thread/thread/948acbc9358a3095

Create a hash referece from two arrays using a hash slice.

Given http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=4402

and http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.beginners/2009/03/msg106746.html

and the ouput of:


my $command = '/bin/rpm -qa "--queryformat=%{Name}\t%{Version}\t%{Arch}\t%{Epoch}\t%{Release}\n"';


...this works:


#
# Create a hash referece from two arrays using a hash slice.
#
my $pkg;
@{$pkg}{qw( name ver arch epoch rel )} = split(/\t/, $rpm_qa);


In case I need it again...

Scripting differences between ksh and bash

Test this:

#!/bin/bash

SET_VAR="didn't"
ls -l | while read LINE
do
    SET_VAR="did"
done

echo "I $SET_VAR set var"

vs

#!/bin/ksh

SET_VAR="didn't"
ls -l | while read LINE
do
    SET_VAR="did"
done

echo "I $SET_VAR set var"

bash seems to run the while in a sub shell, while ksh saves the pipeline up and runs it in its own instance.

Using:

while ...
do
    ...
done <<< "$(command)"

may help in bash.

Import a csv file into SQLite


#!/bin/bash

DIR=/tmp

rm $DIR/create.sql $DIR/load.sql $DIR/files.db

ls -l | sed 's/\s\s*/,/g' | tail -n +2 > $DIR/import.csv

cat < $DIR/load.sql
CREATE TABLE FILES(perms text,links int,user text,groups text,bytes int,mon text,day int,time_year text,file text);
.schema files
.separator ","
.import $DIR/import.csv FILES
.separator "\t"
select * from FILES;
.output $DIR/create.sql
.dump FILES
.output stdout
.backup main $DIR/files.db
.q
EOT

echo ".read $DIR/load.sql" | ./sqlite3


If you're working on an older version of sqlite3 that doesn't support .backup, you can create the database by running:


sqlite3 file.db


where file.db is a new file to create, then create the tables and import the data.


CREATE TABLE FILES(host text,perms text,links int,user text,groups text,bytes int,mon text,day int,time_year text,file text);
.schema files
.separator ";"
.import results.csv FILES
.separator "\t"
select * from FILES;
.output results.sql
.dump FILES
.output stdout
.q


git $PATH problems with ssh

If your git binaries are in a non-standard location you may have problems with the hard-coded path in sshd, which can mean any $PATH definitions in your remote .profile, .kshrc & .bashrc are ignored:


$ ssh host 'echo $PATH'
/usr/local/bin:/bin:/usr/bin
$ git clone ssh://host/$HOME/git/repo test
Initialized empty Git repository in /home/user/test/.git/
ksh: line 1: git-upload-pack: not found
fatal: The remote end hung up unexpectedly


This should work as a temporary fix:


git clone --upload-pack=git/bin/git-upload-pack ssh://host/$HOME/git/repo test

or

git clone -u git/bin/git-upload-pack ssh://localhost/$HOME/git/repo test

for short.

(where git/bin is the path to your git binaries at the remote end)

If you want to permanently set this once you've cloned it,
cd into the directory and issue the commands:


$ git config remote.origin.uploadpack git/bin/git-upload-pack
$ git config remote.origin.receivepack git/bin/git-receive-pack


These links may help:

• https://37s.backpackit.com/pub/1465067


• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1603739/ssh-ksh-git-not-found


• http://go.hopx.net/2009/03/using-git-where-git-is-not-installed.html


• http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-clone.html


• http://projectmouse.org/git-clone.html


• http://www.bluestatic.org/blog/2007/08/01/git-public-push-ing/

bash 2.x prompt gotcha...

In my .bashrc I had:


PS1='\e]0;\u@\h:\w [`tty`]\a\u@\h:\w [`tty`]\n\$ '


On bash 2.x, this meant that every time I displayed my bash prompt it needed to run tty twice.

This had a nasty gotcha...


john@hostname:~ [/dev/pts/0]
$ bash --version ; echo "yes" | grep "no" ; echo $?
SunOS
GNU bash, version 2.03.0(1)-release (sparc-sun-solaris)
Copyright 1998 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
1
john@hostname:~ [/dev/pts/0]
$ echo "yes" | grep "no"
john@hostname:~ [/dev/pts/0]
$ echo $?
0


The echo $? on a line by itself was dutifully reporting the exit code of the last tty command executed in the PS1 variable!

Removing the commands from PS1 made the problem go away:


$ PS1="$ "
$ echo "yes" | grep "no" ; echo $?
1
$ echo "yes" | grep "no"
$ echo $?
1


It then behaves as expected...

(NB: I didn't seem to get the same problem in bash 3.x)

I have now changed my prompt to:


MYTTY=$(tty)
PS1='\e]0;\u@\h:\w [${MYTTY:5}]\a\u@\h:\w [${MYTTY:5}]\n\$ '


ssh-agent script

From: http://mah.everybody.org/docs/ssh

#!/bin/sh

SSH_ENV="$HOME/.ssh/environment.$HOSTNAME"

if [ -x /usr/bin/ssh-agent ]
then
    SSH_AGENT=/usr/bin/ssh-agent
    SSH_ADD=/usr/bin/ssh-add
else
    echo "Can't find ssh-agent"
    SSH_AGENT=/bin/false
    SSH_ADD=/bin/false
fi

start_agent () {

    printf "Starting new SSH agent... "
    $SSH_AGENT > "${SSH_ENV}"
    if [ $? = 0 ]
    then
        echo "OK"
        printf "3s|^echo|#echo|\nw\n\q\n" | ed "${SSH_ENV}" >/dev/null 2>&1
        chmod 600 "${SSH_ENV}"
        . "${SSH_ENV}"
    else
        echo "ERROR"
    fi
    $SSH_ADD -l | grep : || {
        $SSH_ADD;
    }

}
#
# Source SSH settings, if there
#
if [ -f "${SSH_ENV}" ]; then
    . "${SSH_ENV}"
    #ps ${SSH_AGENT_PID} doesn't work under cywgin
    ps -fu$LOGNAME | grep ${SSH_AGENT_PID}.*ssh-agent$ >/dev/null
    if [ $? != 0 ]
    then
        start_agent;
    else
        $SSH_ADD -l | grep : || {
            echo "Agent is running, but has no keys..."
            $SSH_ADD
        }
    fi
else
     start_agent;
fi

and add this to your .bashrc / .kshrc


alias ssh_agent='. $HOME/.ssh/ssh_agent'
SSH_ENV="$HOME/.ssh/environment.$HOSTNAME