Using Terminal

hello world in terminal

echo 'hello world!'
echo -n 'hello! world'

-n surpress the new line

ctrl+A go to the begginning of the line

ctrl+E go to the end of line

up/down key shows history of command

~, tilda is the variable for home directory

tab completion

clear command to clean the screen

man echo

to quit man page is to type q

Navigation

  • Page Down = Spacebar or the ‘Page Down’ Key
  • Page Up = b or the ‘Page Up’ Key
  • Line Down = j or the ‘Down Arrow’ Key
  • Line Up = k or the ‘Up Arrow’ Key
  • Top of Document = g
  • Bottom of Document = G
  • Quit = q
  • Search = / to search forward [example /keyfile ] |or| ? to search backward [ ?keyfile ]
  • Repeat Search = n to repeat the search forward and N to repeat the search in the opposite direction
  • Help = h | Will give you the full summary of Less commands

Navigating the File System

ls
pwd
ls Documents //ls directory
ls Documents Music // ls directories
ls /Users/js/Documents //using absolute path
ls Documents // same command as above
ls ~/Documents //same command as above

Case sensitive on Linux but not in Mac

For space use \

ls Some Directory // this will pick up two direcories
ls Some\ Direcotry
ls "Some Directory"
ls 'Some Directory'
ls -l // details list
ls -a //all the files including hidden files
ls -t //sort by time last modified
ls -t -l -a
ls -tla //or ls -alt etc
cd .. //one level up the directory

. is current directory

Mac finder integration in Mac. Drag a file on the teminal will show the absolute path of the file.

This will open the current directory in the Finder in Mac

open . 

This will open a file with the default text editor.

open finename.txt   

This will open a file with nameofApp.

open -a nameofApp nameofFile.txt

-a stand for application

-R reveal the file in the Finder

open -R filename.txt    

Open a website in a default browser

open http://google.com

Displaying absolute path on the Finder

defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool YES

killall Finder

Files, Links, and CRUD

Copying

touch finename
nano afile
mkdir dirname
touch adir/anotherfile
ls adir
cp afile afile.bak

If there is a superimportantfile, this will overwrite, so be careful.

cp afile superimportantfile //
cp adir seconddir // this will give an error
cp -r adir seconddir

Moving

mv afile adir // or mv afile ~/adir/

The following will move a file and rename it as afile-backup

mv afile.bak ~/adir/afile-backup 
//renaming by mv command
mv afile secondfile

cd ~
touch file1 file2 file3 filejesse filejohn

Moving all files with 'file' name

mv file* adir/

Delete

rm command deletes files, be super careful

rm afile

In order to delete a directory you need to use -r

mkdir folderr
touch folderr/afile
ls folderr
rmdir folderr // error
rmdir -r folderr

Symbolic link/Soft link and Hard link

Go to the dir where you want to add a symlink and use ln -s to create the link.

cd /dir/where/youwant/toaddsymlink/ //link will be created in this dir
ln -s <destination folder/file name> <linkname>

In the video

touch afile 
ln -s afile symlinforafile
ls
nano afile
// add hey there~
cat afile // to show the content hey there~
cat symlinkforafile // this will show hey there~ as well

But if you move a file, the link will break.

mv afile afile2
cat symlinkforafile // this is broken

A hard link won't break.

rm symlinkforafile
ls
ln afile2 hardlinkforafile2
cat afile2 // shows hey there~
mv afile2 afile3 //move the original
ls
cat hardlinforafile2 // this is not broken and shows hey there~

Finding Files

mkdir searchHere
cd searchHere
touch CaSeFiLe afile.doc athird newestfile aDir anotherfile bigfile smallfile afile anotherfile.doc fourth.txt
cd aDir
touch file1.txt file2.txt file3.txt
cd ..

Find by type

find . -type f //find name of dir, . means current dir and will find in aDir as well

Find by name

find . -name "newestfile" //this will find ./newestfile
find . -name "*.txt" //find recursively
//case incensitive -iname
find . -iname "*text"

Find by size

find . -size +2048 //more than 2048, 512bite which is more than 1MB
find . -size -2048 //find less than 1MB size

find by time of modification, creation or last accessed date

find . -mtime -1 //by modification time less than one day old
find . -mtime +1 // older than one day
find . -atime +1  // last accessed time more than one day
find . -atime -1 // accessed during the last day
find . -ctime -1 // created within one day

Combining them

find . -iname "*.txt" -or -iname "*.doc" // will find .txt or .doc
find . -iname "*.txt" -or -iname "*.doc" -and -mtime -1 // will find .txt or .doc and modified within one day.

Exclude a dir from search

find . -iname "*.txt"
find . -iname "*.txt" -or -iname "aDir" -prune // -prune means do not include in the seach but this will print aDir dir
find . -iname "*.txt" -print -or -iname "aDir" -prune// this won't print aDir

Search file for content

grep "Hello" afile// search word, file name
grep -i "Hello" afile //case incensitive match
grep -il "Hello" afile //-l will return the file name
grep -il "Hello" * //return all the file names
grep -ilr "Hello" afile //-r recursively search the current dir

Searching recursively and type of files won't work. You need to use 'find'.

grep -ilr "Hello" *.txt // this won't work
find . -name "*.txt" -exec grep -il "Hello" {} \;

-exec is passing -name "*.txt" to grep. {} is placehoder to put the outputs. and escape \;

Managing File Permissions

cd Documents
touch afile.txt
ls -l

-rw-r--r--

The first - is a regular file. d:directory, l:symbolic link

user(u), group(g), anyone(o) else. The above one, the user can read and write but not able to execute. Group and anyone else can only read.

chmod g+w afile.txt //giving write to group
ls -l
chmod o+w afile.txt //giving write to others
chmod a+x afile.txt //'a' stands for user, group and others. Giving executable to all.

Remove permissions by - instead of +. go is the same as og means group and others.

chmod og-x afile.txt
ls -l

Giving execution and taking writing permission to group.

chmod g+x-w afile.txt
ls -l

Giving group read, write and execution permission by using =

chmod g=rwx afile.txt
ls -l

Taking out all permissions

chmod g= afile.txt

Giving different permissions to different group.

chmod u=rw, g=,o=x afile.txt
ls -l

In absolute form using numbers. 4:read, 2:write, 1:execute

chmod 444 afile.txt
ls -l
chmod 744 afile.txt
chmod 700 afile.txt

chmod 644 afile.txt
Written on June 9, 2013