Cheatsheets

Basic commands

This is a quick summary of the commands mentioned in this workshop by section.

Navigating the file system

pwd	print working directory to find out where in the system you are
ls	view list of a file or directory
ls -l	view more detailed list of files or directory
ls -lh	view more detailed list and make numbers more human-readable
cd	navigate between directories
cd ..	go back one step while navigating between folders
cd -	jump back to previous directory however many steps ago it was
man	open a manual about a command

Working with files and directories

mkdir	create a directory
touch	create a file
nano	edit a text file through an editor within the shell
mv	move a file to a different location or rename it which is a form of moving
cp	copy a file or directory
rm	remove a file or empty directory
rm -r	remove recursively directory and all files and other directories in it
cat	view contents of a file
less	view contents but paginated (use q to quit)
head	view the first ten lines of a file by default
head -n15	view the first 15 lines (or any other number indicated by the -n flag)
tail	view the last ten lines of a file. Similar to head, the -n flag allows you to view more or less

Automating with loops

echo	print string that is being passed as an argument to let us know what the status of the script is