*NIX directory listing into MSExcel

Today a co-worker asked me to help him prepare a report of email accounts on a Linux box running postfix. He wanted a list of the inboxes, their sizes, and their dates of modification. He wanted it in a text file that he could import into a spreadsheet program. After some experimenting, we came up with the following:

ls -lt --time-style=long-iso /var/mail/
  | grep -v ^total
  | awk '{ print $5 "," $6 , $7 "," $8 }'
  | sed -re 's/$/\r/'
  > /tmp/mail_list.csv

The -lt argument to ls gives the long listing and sorts by modification date (in descending order), and the --time-style=long-iso argument ensures that the timestamp format is uniform for all files (without it, you might get one timestamp format for files younger than about 6 months and a different format for older files).

The slash at the end of /var/mail/ is also important, as /var/mail is often a symlink to /var/spool/mail/, and ls -l /var/mail lists the symlink rather than the contents of the referenced directory.

ls -l of a directory typically produces a line resembling total NNNN (where NNNN is some integer) at the beginning of the output, so the grep -v ^total filters out any line starting with 'total'.

The awk command pulls out the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th columns of the space-separated text and formats the output as CSV (comma-separated variable). A couple of lines of output might look like this:

41951950,2006-09-13 05:29,root
723,2006-06-13 14:37,martinez

The sed filter inserts a carriage return character (\r) in front of each newline, giving the text DOS line termination (saves us the extra step of running unix2dos on the output file).

Finally, the output is redirected to a file which can be downloaded via an SFTP client and then opened in MSExcel by simply double-clicking on the downloaded file.

Unholy Version Control

Not long after lunch today my Subversion repository hit revision number 666.

My first instinct was to draw a pentagram on my computer monitor in goat's blood. It then occurred to me that I had neither a readily-available supply of goat's blood nor the means to acquire any.

It also occurred to me that drawing a pentagram on my monitor in goat's blood might make it difficult to use my computer and that my employers might find the whole thing somewhat difficult to understand.

So I just pushed along to #667.

_Lost_ season 2

Last night I finished watching Lost season 2 (I bought it on DVD last week). Wow. Can't wait for season 3 to start (looks like that's on 4 October).

_Manhunt..._ by James L. Swanson

The other day I finished reading a really good book called ManHunt: the 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer by James L. Swanson. I never knew (or didn't remember) that Booth wasn't acting alone: he was the ringleader of a larger conspiracy whose original plan was actually to kidnap Lincoln and take him into the Confederacy. Then when Lee surrendered at Appomatox, Booth and his co-conspirators changed their plans and created a scheme to kill not just the President, but also Vice President Johnson and Secretary of State Seward--all on the same night. In fact, General Grant was supposed to be attending the play that night in the same box as the Lincolns. If Grant hadn't changed his plans, he might have been there when Booth attacked.

It was a fascinating book. It appears to have been very well researched, and the author has a gift for narrative prose (this is coming from a reader who typically has trouble being interested in reading historical accounts).

Video of 'bumping' locks

Today I found a video demonstrating the 'bumping' technique (see a previous post of mine). It looks frighteningly easy.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5177213949300140850

LA trip

I went on vacation with friends to LA about a month ago. It was a fun trip. I flew out with L, K, A, and M on Saturday 5 August to LAX. We rented a car and drove to Valencia, where we met H and R.

I've uploaded some of my pictures from the trip to a Flickr set.

We went into Hollywood on Sunday and walked up and down Hollywood Boulevard. It was pretty cool seeing the stars on the sidewalk. I especially enjoyed the Kodak and Grauman Theatres.



We ate at the Wolfgang Puck restaurant (Vert) in the Kodak Theatre. If you get the chance, try the chicken salad.

On Monday, K, L, A, and M went to Six Flags (Magic Mountain), and H, R, and I took a day trip. This was probably my favorite part of the vacation. It was very relaxing and beautiful. We had lunch at a little French restaurant in Ojai, and then we stopped and took a few pictures of the lake at Ojai. Then we went to Santa Barbara and spent an hour or so on the beach. Santa Barbara is really pretty, and I think I'd like to go back and spend some more time there. We also walked around in Ventura for a couple of hours before heading back to Valencia. That night, H, R, L, A, and I had dinner at a great place in Valencia called BJs. They have really good beer.



We spent Tuesday at Universal Studios. My favorite part was the Waterworld show. I hadn't seen the movie, because I'd heard it was pretty bad, but the live show was awesome. (I've since watched the film. Wow, it's really terrible.) I don't usually do roller coasters (translation: never), but L convinced me to ride the Mummy. It's an indoor coaster, and it was pretty fun (except that the woman sitting next to me desperately needed a shower, and she kept elbowing me in the face). We rode it twice and got pictures. We took the studio tour, and that was very cool. It was neat seeing the outdoor sets that I've probably seen in scores of movies and TV shows. That's an impressive amusement park--it's really huge.

Wednesday we moved from Valencia to Santa Monica, and we drove out to Burbank to see a taping of "The Tonight Show." That was really interesting to me. They filmed it in real time, so the whole thing just took an hour or so. The band (with Kevin Eubanks) played during the commercial breaks. I was amazed at how small the set is. They really make it seem much bigger on the show. Mariska Hargitay was supposed to be the first guest that day, but she cancelled due to a family emergency. I hadn't heard of the guests who did appear: a rather forgetable actress, a very forgetable musical guest, and an interesting fellow named Travis Pastrana, who did a double backflip on a motorbike at the X Games.

Thursday we just hung out on the the beach, lounged around at the hotel, and checked out the Santa Monica pier. That night we ate a delicious meal at
Sushi Roku at Santa Monica and Ocean.


Friday we drove from LA to Vegas. We'd planned to fly, but that was just a day or so after the terrorist scare. None of us wanted to deal with airport security, and it was just a four-hour drive, so we braved the heat and headed into the desert. It wasn't what I expected. I guess I was expecting the Sahara with nothing but sand and dunes, but there were plants and mountains. It was really quite beautiful. We stayed at the Golden Nugget that night. E and D met us there, and it was really great seeing them. That night we walked around on Fremont Street and saw the light show.


Then Saturday A, H, and I flew home. We expected trouble at the airport (because of increased security measures), but it was no big deal. I think M said it was less than 30 minutes between our arrival at the airport and getting through security.