Commands to working with the directories
In this post we will be covering the basic commands used for browsing through the directories and working with the files placed in the directory.
Command to know the current working directory or path
pwd
Going to the active user's home directory, use any of the following command
cd
cd ~
Creating the directory named "test" in the current working directory
mkdir test
Moving to the directory named "test" just created in the current working directory
cd test
Going back to one level up from the current working directory
cd ..
Going to the specific path starting from the root path aka absolute path "/home/username/test"
cd /home/username/test
Moving to the root directory from the current working directory
cd /
Going back to the previous directory
cd -
Creating a directory named "name" and then renaming it to "new-name"
mkdir name
mv name new-name
Removing the directory named "new-name"
rm -rf new-name
Creating all the sub-directories in the path "dir/dir1/dir2/dir3"
mkdir -p dir/dir1/dir2/dir3
Removing all the sub-directories in the path "dir/dir1/dir2/dir3"
rm -rf dir
Commands for working with the files
Listing all the files and sub directories in the current directory
ls
Listing all the files matching a pattern in the current directory
ls test*.txt
Listing all the files and sub directories including the hidden files also in the current directory
ls -a
Listing all the files in the current directory and in all the sub directories
ls -R
Listing all the files and sub directories sorted by time in ascending order
ls -t
Listing all the files and sub directories sorted by time in descending order
ls -tr
Listing all the files with the detailed information like rights, owner, size, last modified time, name
ls -l
Displaying the contents within a file named "test.txt"
cat test.txt
Copying the contents of a file named "test.txt" to a new file named "new.txt"
cp test.txt new.txt
cat test.txt > new.txt
Creating a new empty file named "new.txt"
> new.txt
touch new.txt
Renaming a file named "test.txt" to "newest.txt"
mv test.txt newest.txt
Deleting a fie named "test.txt"
rm test.txt