Explain a Command

A quick way to see what commands and their options do before running them.

Delete files extracted from a tarball

tar -t f file.tar.gz | xargs rm -r

tar	tar(1) an archiving utility
-t	-t, --list List the contents of an archive. Arguments are optional. When given, they specify the names of the members to list.
-f file.tar.gz	-f, --file=ARCHIVE Use archive file or device ARCHIVE. If this option is not given, tar will first examine the environment variable `TAPE'. If it is set, its value will be used as the archive name. Otherwise, tar will assume the compiled-in default. The default value can be inspected either using the --show-defaults option, or at the end of the tar --help output. An archive name that has a colon in it specifies a file or device on a remote machine. The part before the colon is taken as the machine name or IP address, and…
\|	⇓
xargs	xargs(1) build and execute command lines from standard input
rm	rm(1) remove files or directories
-r	-r, -R, --recursive remove directories and their contents recursively

Delete files extracted from a tarball
tar -tf file.tar.gz | xargs rm -r

Print the largest files or folders in the current dir
du -s * | sort -n | tail

From our blog:

Want to build something like this? Have a look at ManKier's API.

For another take on explaining commands, check out explainshell.com.