Wicked Cool Ruby Scripts : Useful Scripts That Solve Difficult Problems

Wicked Cool Ruby Scripts is a compendium of scripts that will make your life easier by saving you time and solving problems. If you find yourself wasting effort and time on a task a trained monkey could do, it's time for Ruby to come to the rescue. Wicked Cool Ruby Scripts provides carefully selected Ruby scripts that are immediately useful. Learn how to streamline administrative tasks like renaming files, disabling processes, and changing permissions. After you get your feet wet creating basic scripts, author Steve Pugh will show you how to create powerful Web crawlers, security scripts, full-fledged libraries and applications, and much more. With each script you'll get the raw code followed by an explanation of how it really works, as well as instructions for how to run the script and suggestions for customizing it. Wicked Cool Ruby Scripts will save you from the tedium of repetitive tasks and give you back the time it would take to write scripts from scratch. Are you spending valuable time on work a well-trained monkey could do? If so, Wicked Cool Ruby Scripts will teach you how to automate repetitive tasks using Ruby, one of the most powerful and easy-to-use programming languages around.Wicked Cool Ruby Scripts provides 58 scripts that offer quick solutions to problems like system administration, manipulating images, and managing a website. After getting your feet wet creating simple scripts to automate tasks like file compression and decompression, you’ll learn how to create powerful web crawlers, security scripts, and full-fledged libraries and applications, as well as how to:* Rename files, disable processes, change permissions, and modify users* Manipulate strings, encrypt files, and sort efficiently* Validate web links, check for orphan files, and generate forms* Mass edit photos, extract image information, and create thumbnails* Parse CSV files and scrape links, images, and pages from the WebAnd as a nod to our security friends, you’ll even learn how to use Ruby to write Metasploit exploits.For each script you get the code, a discussion of how it works, and tips on how to customize it to solve real-world problems. By the time you’re finished, we think you’ll agree that Ruby is a wicked cool way to get things done. Foreword 18 Acknowledgments 20 Introduction 22 Wicked Cool Ruby Scripts 23 You Need Ruby Basics 23 Documentation 23 Organization and Approach 24 The Website 25 1: General Purpose Utilities 26 #1 Check for Changed Files 26 The Code 27 Running the Code 28 The Results 28 How It Works 29 Hacking the Script 30 #2 Encrypt a File 30 The Code 30 Running the Code 31 The Results 31 How It Works 32 Hacking the Script 32 #3 Decrypt a File 32 The Code 32 Running the Code 33 The Results 33 How It Works 33 #4 File Splitting 34 The Code 34 Running the Code 35 The Results 35 How It Works 35 Hacking the Script 36 #5 File Joining 36 The Code 36 Running the Code 37 The Results 37 How It Works 37 Hacking the Script 38 #6 Windows Process Viewer 38 The Code 38 Running the Code 38 The Results 38 How It Works 39 Hacking the Script 40 #7 File Compressor 40 The Code 41 Running the Code 41 The Results 41 How It Works 41 #8 File Decompression 42 The Code 42 Running the Code 43 The Results 43 How It Works 43 #9 Mortgage Calculator 44 The Code 44 Running the Code 44 The Results 44 How It Works 44 Hacking the Script 45 2: Website Scripting 46 #10 Web Page Link Validator 47 The Code 47 Running the Code 48 The Results 48 How It Works 48 Hacking the Script 49 #11 Orphan File Checker 49 The Code 50 Running the Script 50 The Results 51 How It Works 51 #12 Form Generator 52 The Code 52 Running the Code 53 The Results 53 How It Works 54 Hacking the Script 55 #13 RSS Parsing 55 The Code 55 Running the Code 56 The Results 56 How It Works 57 Hacking the Script 58 #14 Stock Exchange Grep 58 The Code 58 Running the Code 59 The Results 59 How It Works 60 Hacking the Script 60 #15 IP Address Generation 60 The Code 61 Running the Code 62 The Results 62 How It Works 62 #16 Subnet Calculator 63 The Code 63 Running the Code 64 The Results 64 How It Works 64 Hacking the Script 65 3: Li(U)nix System Administration 66 #17 Fixing Bad Filenames 66 The Code 67 Running the Code 68 The Results 68 How It Works 68 Hacking the Script 69 #18 Adding a User 69 The Code 69 Running the Code 70 The Results 71 How It Works 71 Hacking the Script 72 #19 Modifying a User 72 The Code 72 Running the Code 74 The Results 74 How It Works 74 Hacking the Script 75 #20 Killing a Stuck Process 75 The Code 75 Running the Code 76 The Results 76 How It Works 76 #21 Validating Symlinks 78 The Code 78 Running the Code 78 The Results 78 How It Works 79 Hacking the Script 79 4: Picture Utilities 80 #22 Mass Editing 80 The Code 81 Running the Code 81 The Results 81 How It Works 81 #23 Image Information Extraction 82 The Code 82 Running the Code 83 The Results 83 How It Works 84 Hacking the Script 85 #24 Creating a Thumbnail 85 The Code 85 Running the Code 85 The Results 85 How It Works 86 Hacking the Script 86 #25 Resize a Picture 87 The Code 87 Running the Code 87 The Results 88 How It Works 88 Hacking the Script 88 #26 Adding a Watermark to Pictures 88 The Code 89 Running the Code 90 The Results 90 How It Works 90 #27 Convert to Black and White 91 The Code 91 Running the Code 92 The Results 92 How It Works 92 #28 Creating a Photo Gallery 93 The Code 93 Running the Code 94 Results 94 How It Works 94 Hacking the Script 96 5: Games and Learning Tools 98 #29 Sudoku Solver 98 The Code 99 Running the Code 100 The Results 100 How It Works 101 #30 Flash Cards 101 The Code 102 Running the Code 102 The Results 103 How It Works 103 Hacking the Script 103 #31 Number-Guessing Game 104 The Code 104 Running the Code 105 The Results 105 How It Works 105 #32 Rock, Paper, Scissors 106 The Code 106 Running the Code 106 The Results 107 How It Works 107 Hacking the Script 108 #33 Word Scramble 108 The Code 108 Running the Code 109 The Results 109 How It Works 109 #34 Hangman 110 The Code 110 Running the Code 111 The Results 111 How It Works 112 #35 Pig 112 The Code 112 Running the Code 114 The Results 114 How It Works 116 Hacking the Script 116 6: String Utilities 118 #36 PDF Generator 118 The Code 119 Running the Code 120 The Results 120 How It Works 121 #37 Word Frequency 121 The Code 122 Running the Code 122 The Results 122 How It Works 123 Hacking the Script 123 #38 Comma-Separated Value Parser 124 The Code 124 Running the Code 125 The Results 125 How It Works 126 Hacking the Script 126 #39 CSV to XML 126 The Code 127 Running the Code 127 The Results 128 How It Works 128 Hacking the Script 129 #40 Ruby Grep 129 The Code 129 Running the Code 130 The Results 130 How It Works 130 Hacking the Script 131 #41 Password Check 131 The Code 131 Running the Code 132 The Results 132 How It Works 132 Hacking the Script 134 7: Servers and Scrapers 136 #42 Define 136 The Code 137 Running the Code 137 The Results 137 How It Works 138 Hacking the Script 138 #43 Automated SMS 139 The Code 139 Running the Code 139 The Results 139 How It Works 140 #44 Link Scrape 140 The Code 141 Running the Code 141 The Results 141 How It Works 143 Hacking the Script 143 #45 Image Scrape 143 The Code 144 Running the Code 144 The Results 144 How It Works 144 Hacking the Script 145 #46 Scraper 145 The Code 145 Running the Code 146 The Results 147 How It Works 147 #47 Encrypted Client 147 The Code 147 Running the Code 148 The Results 148 How It Works 148 #48 Encrypted Server 149 The Code 149 Running the Code 150 The Results 150 How It Works 151 8: Arguments and Documentation 152 #49 File Security 153 The Code 153 Running the Code 155 The Results 155 How It Works 155 #50 Web Scraper 156 The Code 156 Running the Code 159 The Results 159 How It Works 159 #51 Photo Utilities 160 The Code 160 Running the Code 164 The Results 164 How It Works 165 Conclusion 166 9: Sorting Algorithms 168 #52 Bubble Sort 169 The Code 169 Running the Code 170 The Results 170 How It Works 170 #53 Selection Sort 171 The Code 172 Running the Code 172 The Results 172 How It Works 172 #54 Shell Sort 173 The Code 173 Running the Code 174 The Results 174 How It Works 174 #55 Merge Sort 175 The Code 175 Running the Code 176 The Results 176 How It Works 177 #56 Heap Sort 177 The Code 177 Running the Code 178 The Results 179 How It Works 179 #57 Quick Sort 179 The Code 180 Running the Code 180 The Results 180 How It Works 180 #58 Shear Sort 181 The Code 181 Running the Code 183 The Results 183 How It Works 183 A Note About Efficiencies 185 10: Writing a Metasploit 3.1 Module with Ruby 186 Introduction to Metasploit 187 Installation 187 Writing a Module 189 Building the Exploit 189 Watching in Real Time 190 Explanation of Metasploit Module Shell 193 Finding the Payload Space 195 Afterword 206 Index 208 Updates 217 Computers,Programming Languages,General __Wicked Cool Ruby Scripts__ is a compendium of scripts that will make your life easier by saving you time and solving problems. If you find yourself wasting effort and time on a task a trained monkey could do, it's time for Ruby to come to the rescue.