cheat

cheat allows you to create and view interactive cheatsheets on the command-line. It was designed to help *nix system administrators remember options for commands that they use frequently, but not frequently enough to remember.

cheat depends only on python.

Examples

The next time you're forced to disarm a nuclear weapon without consulting Google, you may run:

cheat tar

You will be presented with a cheatsheet resembling:

To extract an uncompressed archive: 
tar -xvf /path/to/foo.tar

To extract a .gz archive:
tar -xzvf /path/to/foo.tgz

To create a .gz archive:
tar -czvf /path/to/foo.tgz /path/to/foo/

To extract a .bz2 archive:
tar -xjvf /path/to/foo.tgz

To create a .bz2 archive:
tar -cjvf /path/to/foo.tgz /path/to/foo/

To see what cheatsheets are availble, run cheat with no arguments.

Note that, while cheat was designed primarily for *nix system administrators, it is agnostic as to what content it stores. If you would like to use cheat to store notes on your favorite cookie recipes, feel free.

Installing

Do the following to install cheat:

1. Clone this repository and cd into it
2. Run sudo ./install

The install script will copy a python file into /usr/local/bin/, and will also create a hidden file (containing the cheatsheet content) in your home directory.

Modifying Cheatsheets

The value of cheat is that it allows you to create your own cheatsheets - the defaults are meant to serve only as a starting point, and can and should be modified.

To modify your cheatsheets, edit the ~/.cheat file, which simply contains a python dictionary. To add new cheatsheets, you need only append new key/value pairs to the dictionary.

Note that cheat supports subcommands, such that (for example) git and git commit may each be assigned their own cheatsheets.

After you've customized your cheatsheets, I urge you to track .cheat along with your dotfiles.

Contributing

If you would like to contribute additional cheatsheets for basic *nix commands, please modify the .cheat file and send me a pull request.