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Life & fun · July 5, 2023

LineSelect, shell utility to interactively select lines in a pipeline

Allows you to "pause" a shell pipeline to interactively select a subset of lines to proceed with. I've always wanted a tool like this, as it effectively combines the best of shell pipes (easy to automate) and visual file managers (easy to make selections). Now that I have it I can't believe a tool like this is not already part of the standard set of shell utilities. There are so many situations where it is useful. Tested on Linux but should also work on MacOS. Also: please help me come up with a better name!

LineSelect, shell utility to interactively select lines in a pipeline launched on July 5, 2023 with 54 votes, #1,380 of 4,347 launches that month and more than 90% of that year's launches. The site was still online in September 2026, 3 years on.

In plain words

LineSelect is a shell utility that pauses a pipeline to let users interactively select which lines to pass forward. It combines the automation benefits of piped commands with the intuitive selection interface of visual file managers. The tool works on Linux and macOS, bridging a gap in standard shell utilities by making it easy to filter data mid-pipeline without complex scripting. It's designed for command-line users who frequently need to choose subsets of piped output.

written from the facts on this page · September 2026

From the sources

Shell utility to interactively select lines from stdin - chfritz/lineselect

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