Directory
Commands
Directories are used to organize your files.Here
is the list of directory commands :
- When you first login, your current working directory
is your home directory. Your home directory has the same name as your
user-name, for example, f1011or cs1234, and it is where your personal
files and subdirectories are saved.
- To find out what is in your home directory
: type at Paris % ls (short for list).
- The ls command lists the contents of your current
working directory.
- If there is no files visible in your home directory,
in which case, the UNIX prompt (Paris : Default Server) will be returned.
- Alternatively, there may already be some files
inserted by the System Administrator when your account was created.First
time when you open your account by default public_html and windows
folder will be created.ls does not, in fact, cause all the files in
your home directory to be listed, but only those ones whose name does
not begin with a dot (.) Files beginning with a dot (.) are known
as hidden files and usually contain important program configuration
information. They are hidden because you should not change them unless
you are very familiar and know exactly what you want to do.
- To list all files in your home directory including
those whose names begin with a dot,
type % ls -a
ls is an example of a command which can take options: -a is an example
of an option. The options change the behaviour of the command.
Command flags for ls are as following :
|
Flag
|
Meaning
|
|
-1
|
Force single-column output on listings.
|
|
-a
|
List all files, including any dot files.
|
|
-C
|
Force multiple-column output on listings.
|
|
-l
|
Generate a long listing of files and directories.
|
|
-r
|
Reverse the order of any file sorting.
|
|
-R
|
Recursively show directories and their contents.
|
|
-s
|
Show size of files, in blocks
|
|
-t
|
Sort output in most-recently-modified order.
|
|
-x
|
Sort output in row-first order.
|
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- The command mkdir creates a new directory. You
will find it useful to make a new directory for each new assignment
you have.
- We will now make a subdirectory in your home
directory to hold the files you will be creating and using in the
course of this tutorial. To make a subdirectory called csc1000 in
your current working directory type % mkdir
csc1000 .To see the directory you have just created, type %
ls
- Now suppose that you want to make this sample
directory tree Home Directory with two subdirectories bin and csc1000.In
csc1000 make further two subdirectories homework1 and homework2.we
can do this by typing
%cd
This is just to ensure that you are working in
your home directory.
%mkdir bin csc1000
At this time we have created two subdirectories
bin and csc1000 in our home directory.
%cd csc1000
Now we are in csc1000 directory.
%mkdir
homework1 homework2
we could have done the same
above steps in just two steps.
%cd
%mkdir bin csc1000 csc1000/homework1
csc1000/homework2
Here the first command changes to the home directory.The
second command makes two new directories as well as makes two subdirectories
in csc1000.
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pwd is one of the most useful Unix Commands.The
pwd(print working directory) tells in which
directory you are working for that moment.When you type at the prompt
%pwd
this is your working directory.
/home/users/login_id
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- This command is used to change directory.For
example,type
%cd director
where director is the name of the
directory to which you want to change.
- If you enter the command without a directory
name,cd will, by default,change to your home directory.
- To change to root directory,type
%cd /
- To change your working directory to /public_html/csc5750/homework1,type
%cd /public_html/csc5750/homework1
- To change above directory homework1 to homework2,type
%cd..
Now if you do pwd your directory will look like
public_html/csc5750.Type
%cd homework2
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rmdir command is used to remove a directory. For
example you want to remove directory extra,type
% rmdir extra
This will remove the directory extra.
To remove a directory we first remove all the file
in it, then remove the directory with rmdir ( r emove d irectory).
% pwd
jeremy
% cd letters
% pwd
jeremy/letters
% rm *
% cd ..
% rmdir letters
The command rm * removes all files in the current
directory. The command cd .. changes the current directory to the parent
of the current one. In this case, it changes us from jeremy/letters
to jeremy . Remember that jeremy/letters is a path.
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