Using the file system Via Command Line
Table of contents
pwd
pwd is short for Print Working directory. This command shows what folder you are currently in.
Try running pwd now, to see what directory you are in.
cd
This is short for Change Directory. running cd with a file path (or a relative file path) allows a user to change the folder that they are currently in. The usage of cd is cd <dirpath>where <dirpath> is the directory that you want to be the new current current working directory. You can also leave out the <dirpath> to cd to your home folder.
Try it out!
Are you in your home directory? run cd .. until you hit the root directory!
Lets go back to the home directory the fast way! run cd ~
Feel free to mess around more with cd!
ls
How do we know what’s in the folder wee’re in? The ls command lists the files and folders in a directory.
Try running ls to what’s in your current directory!
Advanced usage of ls
We can also use ls to find the contents of directories that are not the current directory. run ls / to see what else is in the root directory! The usage of ls is ls <path?> where <path?> is an optional path to a directory. If no directory is specified, it defaults to the current working directory.
It is also possible to make hidden files and folders. Try running ls -a ~ to see what else is in your home directory! By default, ls ignores files and folders that begin with .. You can show them by using the -a flag.
More advanced usage of ls can be found by running man ls
cat
cat shows the content of a file. For longer files, it might be helpful to use less
mkdir
The format of this command is mkdir <dirpath> where dirpath is the path to the new directory to be created MaKe DIRectory
touch
Creates a file
rm
The rm command is dangerous! Make sure you know what you’re removing. There is no undo!
rm -r can be used to delete a folder and its contents
cp
given a file (or folder) and a destination, it copies the file to the destination
mv
given a file (or folder) and a destination, it moves the file to the destination. mv can also be used to rename a file! If we move a file to the same location, but with a different name, it is the same as renaming it. We can do this using mv <oldname> <newname>
vim
Vim is a text editor that runs in the terminal. To open a file in vim type vim <filename>. You can also type a filename that doesn’t exist to create a new file. Vim does not use the mouse (without extra configuration), and so everything you do is only using keyboard. You can find many vim cheatsheets on line, but the basics are as follows:
There are many modes in vim. The most important are “normal mode” and “insert mode”. Normal mode allows you to enter commands to edit the text. This includes things like find and replace, deleting multiple lines, or moving to a line number. Insert mode allows you to add text to the file, like your’e used to, but to navigate, you must use the arrow keys.
When you start vim, you are in normal mode. To enter insert mode, press i.
Exiting vim
To exit vim, first enter normal mode by pressing esc. Then to exit, you can type :q and press enter. If you have made no changes to the file, it will exit. If you have mad changes, you must chose to save the changes, or discard them. To quit and discard changes, you can type :q!. The exclamation mark forces vim to quit, discarding changes.
To save changes at any point, you can type :w in normal mode. You can also save and close by typing :wq.
See also
- the unix file system
- interfacing with your virtual machine
- the man pages