Viewing and Changing the File System
Learn to manipulate directories and files from the command line.
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Key Concepts
Review core concepts you need to learn to master this subject
Command Options
Command Options
Options can be used to modify the behavior of shell commands. Shell command options are commonly represented by a single letter preceded by a -. For example, -l, -a, and -d could all be options that follow a shell command.
ls List Command Options
ls List Command Options
The shell command ls is used to list the contents in a directory. It can be combined with the following command options:
-a: lists all contents, including hidden files and directories.-l: lists all contents, in long format.-t: lists all contents, by the time they were last modified.
cp Copy
cp Copy
The shell command cp is used to copy files or directories.
The basic argument structure is cp source destination, where the source is the file/directory to copy to the destination file/directory.
mv Move
mv Move
The shell command mv is used to move a file into a directory. Use mv with the source file as the first argument and the destination directory as the second argument.
rm Remove
rm Remove
The shell command rm is used to delete files and directories. The -r flag deletes a directory and all of its files and directories (rm -r).
- 1So far we’ve used the command line to navigate the filesystem. We can do more with the command line to view directories and files. We can also use the command line to copy, move, and remove files …
- 2$ ls -a . .. .preferences action drama comedy genres.txt 1. The ls command lists all files and directories in the working directory. 2. The -a modifies the behavior of the ls command to al…
- 3$ ls -l drwxr-xr-x 5 cc eng 4096 Jun 24 16:51 action drwxr-xr-x 4 cc eng 4096 Jun 24 16:51 comedy drwxr-xr-x 6 cc eng 4096 Jun 24 16:51 drama -rw-r–r– 1 cc eng 0 Jun 24 16:51 …
- 4$ ls -alt drwxr-xr-x 4 cc eng 4096 Jun 29 12:22 . -rw-r–r– 1 cc eng 0 Jun 29 12:22 .gitignore drwxr-xr-x 5 cc eng 4096 Jun 30 14:20 .. drwxr-xr-x 2 cc eng 4096 Jun 29 12:22 satire drwxr-xr-x …
- 5cp frida.txt lincoln.txt The cp command copies files or directories. Here, we copy the contents of frida.txt into lincoln.txt.
- 6cp biopic/cleopatra.txt historical/ To copy a file into a directory, use cp with the source file as the first argument and the destination directory as the second argument. Here, we copy the fil…
- 7cp satire/ In addition to using filenames as arguments, we can use special characters like to select groups of files. These special characters are called wildcards. The * selects all file…
- 8The mv command moves files. It’s similar to cp in its usage. mv superman.txt superhero/ To move a file into a directory, use mv with the source file as the first argument and the destination di…
- 9rm waterboy.txt The rm command deletes files and directories. Here we remove the file waterboy.txt from the filesystem. rm -r comedy The -r is an option that modifies the behavior of th…
- 10Congratulations! You learned how to use the command line to view and manipulate the filesystem. What can we generalize so far? Options modify the behavior of commands: ls -a lists all conten…
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Viewing and Changing the File System
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