UNIX - QUICK GUIDE
http://www.tutorialspoint.com/unix/unix-quick-guide.htm
Copyright tutorialspoint.com
GETTING STARTED
What is Unix ?
The UNIX operating system is a set of programs that act as a link between the computer and the
user.
Unix was originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including
Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna.
There are various Unix variants available in the market. Solaris Unix, AIX, HP Unix and BSD
are few examples. Linux is also a flavor of Unix which is freely available.
Several people can use a UNIX computer at the same time; hence UNIX is called a multiuser
system.
A user can also run multiple programs at the same time; hence UNIX is called multitasking.
Login Unix
You can login to the system using login command as follows
login : amrood
amrood's password:
Last login: Sun Jun 14 09:32:32 2009 from 62.61.164.73
$
Logging Out
When you finish your session, you need to log out of the system to ensure that nobody else
accesses your files while masquerading as you.
To log out
1. Just type logout command at command prompt, and the system will clean up everything and
break the connection
FILE MANAGEMENT
In UNIX there are three basic types of files
1. Ordinary Files: An ordinary file is a file on the system that contains data, text, or program
instructions. In this tutorial, you look at working with ordinary files.
2. Directories: Directories store both special and ordinary files. For users familiar with
Windows or Mac OS, UNIX directories are equivalent to folders.
3. Special Files: Some special files provide access to hardware such as hard drives, CD-ROM
drives, modems, and Ethernet adapters. Other special files are similar to aliases or shortcuts
and enable you to access a single file using different names.
Filename Substitution
Command
Description
ls -[l]
List Files in Current Directory
ls -[l]a
List Hidden Files
Home Directory
~user
Home Directory of Another User
Wild Card, matches single character
Wild Card, matches multiple characters
Filename Manipulation
Command
Description
cat filename
Display File Contents
cp source destination
Copy source file into destination
mv oldname newname
Move Rename a oldname to newname.
rm filename
Remove Delete filename
chmod nnn filename
Changing Permissions
touch filename
Changing Modification Time
ln [-s] oldname newname
Creates softlink on oldname
ls -F
Display information about file type.
DIRECTORY MANAGEMENT
Command
Description
mkdir dirname
Create a new directory dirname
rmdir dirname
Delete an existing directory provided it is empty.
cd dirname
Change Directory to dirname
cd -
Change to last working directory.
cd ~
Change to home directory
pwd
Display current working directory.
ENVIRONMENT SETUP
When you type any command on command prompt, the shell has to locate the command before it
can be executed. The PATH variable specifies the locations in which the shell should look for
commands.
PS1 and PS2 Variable
The characters that the shell displays as your command prompt are stored in the variable PS1.
When you issue a command that is incomplete, the shell will display a secondary prompt and wait
for you to complete the command and hit Enter again. The default secondary prompt is >
thegreaterthansign, but can be changed by re-defining the PS2 shell variable
Escape Characters
Escape Sequence
Description
\t
Current time, expressed as HH:MM:SS.
\d
Current date, expressed as Weekday Month Date
\n
Newline.
\s
Current shell environment.
\W
Working directory.
\w
Full path of the working directory.
\u
Current user.s username.
\h
Hostname of the current machine.
\#
Command number of the current command. Increases with each new
command entered.
\$
If the effective UID is 0 thatis, ifyouareloggedinasroot, end the prompt with
the # character; otherwise, use the $.
Environment Variables
Following is the partial list of important environment variables. These variables would be set and
accessed as mentioned above
Variable
Description
DISPLAY
Contains the identifier for the display that X11 programs should use by
default.
HOME
Indicates the home directory of the current user: the default argument
for the cd built-in command.
IFS
Indicates the Internal Field Separator that is used by the parser for
word splitting after expansion.
LANG
LANG expands to the default system locale; LC_ALL can be used to
override this. For example, if its value is pt_BR, then the language is set
to Brazilian Portuguese and the locale to Brazil.
LD_LIBRARY_PATH
On many Unix systems with a dynamic linker, contains a colonseparated list of directories that the dynamic linker should search for
shared objects when building a process image after exec, before
searching in any other directories.
PATH
Indicates search path for commands. It is a colon-separated list of
directories in which the shell looks for commands.
PWD
Indicates the current working directory as set by the cd command.
RANDOM
Generates a random integer between 0 and 32,767 each time it is
referenced.
SHLVL
Increments by one each time an instance of bash is started. This
variable is useful for determining whether the built-in exit command
ends the current session.
TERM
Refers to the display type
TZ
Refers to Time zone. It can take values like GMT, AST, etc.
UID
Expands to the numeric user ID of the current user, initialized at shell
startup.
FILTERS & PIPES
Command
Description
wc [-l]
Word/Line Count
tail [-n]
Displays last n lines from a file
sort [-n]
Sort lines
pr -t
Multicolumn Output
grep "pattern"
filename
Searching for a pattern with grep
pg or more
Paginate a file content display.
SPECIAL VARIABLES
Variable
Description
$0
The filename of the current script.
$n
These variables correspond to the arguments with which a script was invoked.
Here n is a positive decimal number corresponding to the position of an
argument thefirstargumentis$1, thesecondargumentis$2, andsoon.
$#
The number of arguments supplied to a script.
$*
All the arguments are double quoted. If a script receives two arguments,
isequivalentto1 $2.
$@
All the arguments are individually double quoted. If a script receives two
arguments, @isequivalentto1 $2.
$?
The exit status of the last command executed.
$$
The process number of the current shell. For shell scripts, this is the process ID
under which they are executing.
$!
The process number of the last background command.
SHELL BASIC OPERATORS
Arithmetic Operators
Assume variable a holds 10 and variable b holds 20 then
Operator
Description
Example
Addition - Adds values on either side of the
operator
`expr a + b` will give 30
Subtraction - Subtracts right hand operand
from left hand operand
`expr a b` will give -10
Multiplication - Multiplies values on either side
of the operator
`expr a b` will give 200
Division - Divides left hand operand by right
hand operand
`expr b/a` will give 2
Modulus - Divides left hand operand by right
hand operand and returns remainder
`expr ba` will give 0
Assignment - Assign right operand in left
operand
a=$b would assign value of b into
a
==
Equality - Compares two numbers, if both are
same then returns true.
[ a == b ] would return false.
!=
Not Equality - Compares two numbers, if both
are different then returns true.
[ a! = b ] would return true.
Relational Operators
Assume variable a holds 10 and variable b holds 20 then
Operator
Description
Example
-eq
Checks if the value of two operands are equal
or not, if yes then condition becomes true.
[ a eqb ] is not true.
-ne
Checks if the value of two operands are equal
or not, if values are not equal then condition
becomes true.
[ a neb ] is true.
-gt
Checks if the value of left operand is greater
than the value of right operand, if yes then
condition becomes true.
[ a gtb ] is not true.
-lt
Checks if the value of left operand is less than
the value of right operand, if yes then
condition becomes true.
[ a ltb ] is true.
-ge
Checks if the value of left operand is greater
than or equal to the value of right operand, if
yes then condition becomes true.
[ a geb ] is not true.
-le
Checks if the value of left operand is less than
or equal to the value of right operand, if yes
then condition becomes true.
[ a leb ] is true.
Boolean Operators
Assume variable a holds 10 and variable b holds 20 then
Operator
Description
Example
This is logical negation. This inverts a true
condition into false and vice versa.
[ ! false ] is true.
-o
This is logical OR. If one of the operands is true
then condition would be true.
[ a lt20 ob -gt 100 ] is true.
-a
This is logical AND. If both the operands are
true then condition would be true otherwise it
would be false.
[ a lt20 ab -gt 100 ] is false.
String Operators
Assume variable a holds "abc" and variable b holds "efg" then
Operator
Description
Example
Checks if the value of two operands are equal
or not, if yes then condition becomes true.
[ a = b ] is not true.
!=
Checks if the value of two operands are equal
or not, if values are not equal then condition
becomes true.
[ a! = b ] is true.
-z
Checks if the given string operand size is zero.
If it is zero length then it returns true.
[ -z $a ] is not true.
-n
Checks if the given string operand size is nonzero. If it is non-zero length then it returns
true.
[ -z $a ] is not false.
str
Check if str is not the empty string. If it is
empty then it returns false.
[ $a ] is not false.
File Test Operators
Assume a variable file holds an existing file name "test" whose size is 100 bytes and has read,
write and execute permission on
Operator
Description
Example
-b file
Checks if file is a block special file if yes then
condition becomes true.
[ -b $file ] is false.
-c file
Checks if file is a character special file if yes
then condition becomes true.
[ -c $file ] is false.
-d file
Check if file is a directory if yes then condition
becomes true.
[ -d $file ] is not true.
-f file
Check if file is an ordinary file as opposed to a
directory or special file if yes then condition
becomes true.
[ -f $file ] is true.
-g file
Checks if file has its set group ID SGID bit set if
yes then condition becomes true.
[ -g $file ] is false.
-k file
Checks if file has its sticky bit set if yes then
condition becomes true.
[ -k $file ] is false.
-p file
Checks if file is a named pipe if yes then
condition becomes true.
[ -p $file ] is false.
-t file
Checks if file descriptor is open and associated
with a terminal if yes then condition becomes
true.
[ -t $file ] is false.
-u file
Checks if file has its set user id SUID bit set if
yes then condition becomes true.
[ -u $file ] is false.
-r file
Checks if file is readable if yes then condition
becomes true.
[ -r $file ] is true.
-w file
Check if file is writable if yes then condition
becomes true.
[ -w $file ] is true.
-x file
Check if file is execute if yes then condition
becomes true.
[ -x $file ] is true.
-s file
Check if file has size greater than 0 if yes then
condition becomes true.
[ -s $file ] is true.
-e file
Check if file exists. Is true even if file is a
directory but exists.
[ -e $file ] is true.
SHELL DECISION MAKING
The if...fi statement
if [ expression ]
then
Statement(s) to be executed if expression is true
fi
The if...else...fi statement
if [ expression ]
then
Statement(s) to be executed if expression is true
else
Statement(s) to be executed if expression is not true
fi
The if...elif...fi statement
if [ expression 1
then
Statement(s) to
elif [ expression
then
Statement(s) to
elif [ expression
then
Statement(s) to
else
Statement(s) to
fi
]
be executed if expression 1 is true
2 ]
be executed if expression 2 is true
3 ]
be executed if expression 3 is true
be executed if no expression is true
The case...esac Statement
case word in
pattern1)
Statement(s) to be executed if pattern1 matches
;;
pattern2)
Statement(s) to be executed if pattern2 matches
;;
pattern3)
Statement(s) to be executed if pattern3 matches
;;
esac
SHELL LOOP TYPES
The while Loop
while command
do
Statement(s) to be executed if command is true
done
The for Loop
for var in word1 word2 ... wordN
do
Statement(s) to be executed for every word.
done
The until Loop
until command
do
Statement(s) to be executed until command is true
done
The select Loop
select var in word1 word2 ... wordN
do
Statement(s) to be executed for every word.
done
SHELL LOOP CONTROL
The break statement
break [n]
The continue statement
continue [n]
SHELL SUBSTITUTIONS
The shell performs substitution when it encounters an expression that contains one or more
special characters.
Command Substitution
The command substitution is performed when a command is given as
`command`
Variable Substitution
Here is the following table for all the possible substitutions
Form
Description
${var}
Substitue the value of var.
${var:-word}
If var is null or unset, word is substituted for var. The value of var
does not change.
${var:=word}
If var is null or unset, var is set to the value of word.
${var:?message}
If var is null or unset, message is printed to standard error. This
checks that variables are set correctly.
${var:+word}
If var is set, word is substituted for var. The value of var does not
change.
REDIRECTION COMMANDS
Following is the complete list of commands which you can use for redirection
Command
Description
pgm > file
Output of pgm is redirected to file
pgm < file
Program pgm reads its input from file.
pgm >> file
Output of pgm is appended to file.
n > file
Output from stream with descriptor n redirected to file.
n >> file
Output from stream with descriptor n appended to file.
n >& m
Merge output from stream n with stream m.
n <& m
Merge input from stream n with stream m.
<< tag
Standard input comes from here through next tag at start of line.
Takes output from one program, or process, and sends it to another.
SHELL MAN PAGES HELP
This quick guide lists commands, including a syntax and brief description. For more detail, use
$man command
Processing math: 100%
