copy

I ran into a situation this morning where I needed to use the Linux find command to (a) find all the MP3 files beneath my current directory and (b) copy them to another directory. In this case I didn't want to do a cp -r command or tar command to preserve the directory structure; instead, I wanted all of the files to end up in the same directory (so I could easily import them into iTunes).

While interviewing for computer programming positions here in the Boulder, Colorado area, I've found that most interviewers ask questions about Java serialization. After being asked about serialization for the third time recently, I suddenly remembered an old Java deep clone hack that takes advantage of serialization.

The basic idea is this:

Java Swing clipboard FAQ: How do I copy an image to the clipboard in a Java/Swing application?

Last night I needed to do just this, get an image that I'm currently displaying in a Java JFrame, and copy that image to the clipboard. I won't discuss the solution here too much, other than to say that in the example source code below, a MetaFrame is a customized subclass of a JFrame, and when I call the getCurrentImage() function, it simply returns a Java Image type.

Here's the source code:

sed command FAQ: How can I use the Unix/Linux sed command to edit (modify) files in place?

The short answer is that you just need to use the -i or --in-place sed arguments, as shown in the sed man page:

-i[SUFFIX], --in-place[=SUFFIX]

edit files in place (makes backup if extension supplied)

Then, if you have a file named 'hello.txt' with contents like this:

jello, world
this is a test

you can then run a sed command like this to modify that file:

iPhone copy/paste FAQ - Is there was way to select an entire paragraph on the iPhone (or iPod Touch) when starting a copy and paste process? Copying a paragraph by selecting a word on the iPhone/iPod, and then expanding the selection box is okay, but it's a bit of a slow process.