how.wtf

How to get top used Linux commands

· Thomas Taylor

how to use the history command to fetch the top used linux commands

Retrieving the top 10 used commands in Linux is simple using the history command.

What is the history command

The history command, as its name implies, is used to view previously executed commands. It’s API is minimal and easy to use.

How to view top used commands in Linux

Using a combination of history and awk, we can pull the top 10 commands like this:

1history |
2    awk '{CMD[$1]++;count++;}END { for (a in CMD)print CMD[a] " " CMD[a]/count*100 "% " a;}' |
3    grep -v "./" |
4    sort -n -r |
5    head -n 10

Output:

 11842 26.4617% git
 2520 7.47019% export
 3389 5.58828% cd
 4262 3.76383% sfdx
 5257 3.692% npx
 6254 3.6489% npm
 7237 3.40468% nvim
 8234 3.36159% aws
 9227 3.26103% rm
10195 2.80132% poetry

The awk command is the magic sauce. The sort command is used to reverse sort the list then the head command prints the last 10 lines.

If you prefer aligned columns with a counter to the left, we can use nl and the column command:

1history | 
2    awk '{CMD[$1]++;count++;}END { for (a in CMD)print CMD[a] " " CMD[a]/count*100 "% " a;}' |
3    grep -v "./" |
4    column -c 3 -s " " -t |
5    sort -n -r |
6    nl |
7    head -n 10

Output:

 1    1	1842  26.4351%    git
 2    2	520   7.46269%    export
 3    3	389   5.58266%    cd
 4    4	262   3.76005%    sfdx
 5    5	257   3.68829%    npx
 6    6	254   3.64524%    npm
 7    7	237   3.40126%    nvim
 8    8	234   3.35821%    aws
 9    9	227   3.25775%    rm
10    10	195   2.79851%    poetry

In my case, git, export, and cd are my most used commands from the terminal.

#Linux  

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