Chapter 6: Basic Directory and File Management

Commands:

Command Description Examples
cat Concatenate and display files $ cat dante
The Life and Times of Dante
by Dante Pocai

Mention "Alighieri" and few may know about whom you are talking. Say "Dante," instead, and the whole world knows whom you mean. For Dante Alighieri, like Raphael
$

diff The diff utility will compare the contents of 2 files and write to standard output a list of changes necessary to convert the first file into the second file.  No output will be produced if the files are identical. $ diff -c fruit fruit2
*** fruit Fri May 8 11:32:49 1998
--- fruit2 Fri May 8 14:55:21 1998
***********
***2, 8****
orange
apple
banana
-pear
-mango
tomato
pomegranate
---2, 8-----
orange
apple
banana
tomato
+guava
+mango
pomegranate
file Determines file type $ file dante
dante:    English text

$ file beans
beans:    Frame Maker Document
head Displays the first few lines of files. $ head -5 /usr/dict/words
1st
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
$
mkdir The mkdir command creates the named directories in mode 777 (possibly altered by the file mode creation mask umask(1)). $ mkdir Reports
$ ls -dl Reports
drwxr-xr-x 2 user2 staff 512 Jan 28 16:24 Reports

$ mkdir -p practice/dir1/admin
$ ls -R practice
practice:
dir1 mailbox project research
practice/dir1:
admin
practice/dir1/admin:
more The more utility is a filter that displays the contents of a text file on the terminal, on screen at a time.  It normally pauses after each full screen. $ cat dante | more
ls For each file that is a directory, ls lists the contents of the directory; for each file that is an ordinary file, ls repeats its name and any other information requested. -a,-F,-l,-lt,-ld,-E

$ ls /home/user2
<output omitted>

$ ls -l /home/user2/dir2
<output omitted>

$ ls -la ~/dir1
<output omitted>

strings Finds printable strings in an object or binary file $ strings /usr/bin/cat
SUNW_OST_OSCMD
usvtebn
usage: cat [ -usvtebn ] [-|file] ...
cat: Cannot stat stdout
cat: cannot open %s
cat: cannot stat %s
cat: input/output files '%s' identical
cat: close error
<some output omitted>
tail Displays the last few lines of files. $ tail -5 /usr/dict/words
zounds
z's
zucchini
Zurich
zygote
$
touch The touch utility sets the access and modification times of each file.  The file is created if it does not already exist $ cd ~/practice

$ touch mailbox project research

$ ls
mailbox project research

wc The wc utility reads one or more input files and, by default, writes the number of newline characters, words, and bytes contained in each input file to the standard output. $ wc dante
33 223 1320 dante

$ wc -l dante
33 dante