Unix Commands
Unix Commands
Unix Commands
Directories
Directories, like folders on a Macintosh, are used to group files together in a
hierarchical structure.
Finding things
ff --- find files anywhere on the system. This can be extremely useful if you've
forgotten in which directory you put a file, but do remember the name. In fact,
if you use ff -p you don't even need the full name, just the beginning. This can
also be useful for finding other things on the system, e.g. documentation.
grep string filename(s) --- looks for the string in the files. This can be useful a
lot of purposes, e.g. finding the right file among many, figuring out which is the
right version of something, and even doing serious corpus work. grep comes in
several varieties (grep, egrep, and fgrep) and has a lot of very flexible options.
Check out the man pages if this sounds good to you.
Miscellaneous tools
webster word --- looks up the word in an electronic version of Webster's
dictionary and returns the definition(s)
date --- shows the current date and time.
cal --- shows a calendar of the current month. Use e.g., 'cal 10 1995' to get that
for October 95, or 'cal 1995' to get the whole year.
More commands:
jobs --- lists your currently active jobs (those that you put in the background)
and their job numbers. Useful to determine which one you want to foreground
if you have lots of them.
bg --- background a job after suspending it.
fg %jobnumber --- foreground a job
!! --- repeat the previous command (but CTRL-p, is safer, because you have hit
return in addition)
!pattern --- repeat the last command that starts with pattern
echo $VARIABLE --- shows the value of an environment variable
setenv --- lets you set environment variables. For example, if you typed a
wrong value for the TERM variable when logging in, you don't have to log out
and start over, but you can just do setenv TERM vt100 (or whatever). To see
what all your environment variables are set to, type env. The one that you're
most likely to have to set is the DISPLAY variable, when using an X-display.
unset VAR --- lets you un-set environment variables. Useful, for example, if
you've usually set autologout but want to stay logged on for a while without
typing for some reason, or if you set the DISPLAY variable automatically but
want to avoid opening windows for some reason.
source filename --- you need to source your dotfiles after making changes for
them to take effect (or log off and in again)
load --- will show you the load average graphically
ispell filename --- will check the spelling in your file. If you're running it on a
LaTeX file use the -T option to tell it to ignore the LaTeX commands. You can
create and use your own dictionary to avoid having it tell you that your own
name, those of fellow linguists, and linguistics terminology are a typos in every
paper you write.
weblint --- checks the syntax of html files
latex2html --- translates LaTeX files into HTML
wn word option --- lets you access the WordNet database and display, for
example, synonyms, hypernyms, or hyponyms, depending on the option you
select
Contents
cat --- for creating and displaying short files
chmod --- change permissions
cd --- change directory
cp --- for copying files
date --- display date
echo --- echo argument
ftp --- connect to a remote machine to download or upload files
grep --- search file
head --- display first part of file
ls --- see what files you have
lpr --- standard print command (see also print )
more --- use to read files
mkdir --- create directory
mv --- for moving and renaming files
ncftp --- especially good for downloading files via anonymous ftp.
print --- custom print command (see also lpr )
pwd --- find out what directory you are in
rm --- remove a file
rmdir --- remove directory
rsh --- remote shell
setenv --- set an environment variable
sort --- sort file
tail --- display last part of file
tar --- create an archive, add or extract files
telnet --- log in to another machine
wc --- count characters, words, lines
cat
This is one of the most flexible Unix commands. We can use to create, view and
concatenate files. For our first example we create a three-item English-Spanish
dictionary in a file called "dict."
% cat >dict
red rojo
green verde
blue azul
<control-D>
%
<control-D> stands for "hold the control key down, then tap 'd'". The symbol > tells
the computer that what is typed is to be put into the file dict. To view a file we
use cat in a different way:
% cat dict
red rojo
green verde
blue azul
%
If we wish to add text to an existing file we do this:
% cat >>dict
white blanco
black negro
<control-D>
%
Now suppose that we have another file tmp that looks like this:
% cat tmp
cat gato
dog perro
%
Then we can join dict and tmp like this:
% cat dict tmp >dict2
We could check the number of lines in the new file like this:
% wc -l dict2
8
The command wc counts things --- the number of characters, words, and line in a file.
chmod
This command is used to change the permissions of a file or directory. For example to
make a file essay.001 readable by everyone, we do this:
% chmod a+r essay.001
To check the permissions of a file, use ls -l . For more information on chmod, use man
chmod.
cd
Use cd to change directory. Use pwd to see what directory you are in.
% cd english
% pwd
% /u/ma/jeremy/english
% ls
novel poems
% cd novel
% pwd
% /u/ma/jeremy/english/novel
% ls
ch1 ch2 ch3 journal scrapbook
% cd ..
% pwd
% /u/ma/jeremy/english
% cd poems
% cd
% /u/ma/jeremy
Jeremy began in his home directory, then went to his english subdirectory. He listed
this directory using ls , found that it contained two entries, both of which happen to be
diretories. He cd'd to the diretory novel, and found that he had gotten only as far as
chapter 3 in his writing. Then he used cd .. to jump back one level. If had wanted to
jump back one level, then go to poems he could have said cd ../poems. Finally he
used cd with no argument to jump back to his home directory.
cp
This copies the file jabber in the directory poems to the current directory. The symbol
"." stands for the current directory. The symbol "~" stands for the home directory.
date
echo
The echo command echoes its arguments. Here are some examples:
% echo this
this
% echo $EDITOR
/usr/local/bin/emacs
% echo $PRINTER
b129lab1
Things like PRINTER are so-called environment variables. This one stores the name of
the default printer --- the one that print jobs will go to unless you take some action to
change things. The dollar sign before an environment variable is needed to get the
value in the variable. Try the following to verify this:
% echo PRINTER
PRINTER
ftp
Use ftp to connect to a remote machine, then upload or download files. See
also: ncftp
Example 1: We'll connect to the machine fubar.net, then change director to mystuff,
then download the file homework11:
% ftp solitude
Connected to fubar.net.
220 fubar.net FTP server (Version wu-2.4(11) Mon Apr 18 17:26:33 MDT
1994) ready.
Name (solitude:carlson): jeremy
331 Password required for jeremy.
Password:
230 User jeremy logged in.
ftp> cd mystuff
250 CWD command successful.
ftp> get homework11
ftp> quit
Example 2: We'll connect to the machine fubar.net, then change director to mystuff,
then upload the file collected-letters:
% ftp solitude
Connected to fubar.net.
220 fubar.net FTP server (Version wu-2.4(11) Mon Apr 18 17:26:33 MDT
1994) ready.
Name (solitude:carlson): jeremy
331 Password required for jeremy.
Password:
230 User jeremy logged in.
ftp> cd mystuff
250 CWD command successful.
ftp> put collected-letters
ftp> quit
The ftp program sends files in ascii (text) format unless you specify binary mode:
ftp> binary
ftp> put foo
ftp> ascii
ftp> get bar
The file foo was transferred in binary mode, the file bar was transferred in ascii mode.
grep
Use this command to search for information in a file or files. For example, suppose
that we have a file dict whose contents are
red rojo
green verde
blue azul
white blanco
black negro
Then we can look up items in our file like this;
% grep red dict
red rojo
% grep blanco dict
white blanco
% grep brown dict
%
Notice that no output was returned by grep brown. This is because "brown" is not in
our dictionary file.
Grep can also be combined with other commands. For example, if one had a file of
phone numbers named "ph", one entry per line, then the following command would
give an alphabetical list of all persons whose name contains the string "Fred".
% grep Fred ph | sort
Alpha, Fred: 333-6565
Beta, Freddie: 656-0099
Frederickson, Molly: 444-0981
Gamma, Fred-George: 111-7676
Zeta, Frederick: 431-0987
The symbol "|" is called "pipe." It pipes the output of the grep command into the input
of the sort command.
displays the first 10 lines of the file essay.001 To see a specific number of lines, do
this:
% head -n 20 essay.001
This displays the first 20 lines of the file.
ls
Use ls to see what files you have. Your files are kept in something called a directory.
% ls
foo letter2
foobar letter3
letter1 maple-assignment1
%
Note that you have six files. There are some useful variants of the ls command:
% ls l*
letter1 letter2 letter3
%
Note what happened: all the files whose name begins with "l" are listed. The asterisk
(*) is the " wildcard" character. It matches any string.
lpr
This is the standard Unix command for printing a file. It stands for the ancient "line
printer." See
% man lpr
for information on how it works. See print for information on our local intelligent print
command.
mkdir
There shouldn't be any files there yet, since you just made it. To create files,
see cat or emacs.
more
More is a command used to read text files. For example, we could do this:
% more poems
The effect of this to let you read the file "poems ". It probably will not fit in one
screen, so you need to know how to "turn pages". Here are the basic commands:
mv
ncftp
Use ncftp for anonymous ftp --- that means you don't have to have a password.
% ncftp ftp.fubar.net
Connected to ftp.fubar.net
> get jokes.txt
In each case print does the right thing, regardless of whether the file is a text file
(like foo ), a postcript file (like notes.ps, or a dvi file (like manuscript.dvi. In these
examples the file is printed on the default printer. To see what this is, do
% print
and read the message displayed. To print on a specific printer, do this:
% print foo jwb321
% print notes.ps jwb321
% print manuscript.dvi jwb321
To change the default printer, do this:
% setenv PRINTER jwb321
pwd
Use this command to find out what directory you are working in.
% pwd
/u/ma/jeremy
% cd homework
% pwd
/u/ma/jeremy/homework
% ls
assign-1 assign-2 assign-3
% cd
% pwd
/u/ma/jeremy
%
Jeremy began by working in his "home" directory. Then he cd 'd into his homework
subdirectory. Cd means " change directory". He used pwd to check to make sure he
was in the right place, then used ls to see if all his homework files were there. (They
were). Then he cd'd back to his home directory.
rm
The first command removed a single file. The second command was intended to
remove all files beginning with the string "letter." However, our user (Jeremy?)
decided not to remove letter3.
rmdir
Use this command to remove a directory. For example, to remove a directory called
"essays", do this:
% rmdir essays
A directory must be empty before it can be removed. To empty a directory, use rm.
rsh
Use this command if you want to work on a computer different from the one you are
currently working on. One reason to do this is that the remote machine might be
faster. For example, the command
% rsh solitude
connects you to the machine solitude. This is one of our public workstations and is
fairly fast.
setenv
% echo $PRINTER
labprinter
% setenv PRINTER myprinter
% echo $PRINTER
myprinter
sort
Use this commmand to sort a file. For example, suppose we have a file dict with
contents
red rojo
green verde
blue azul
white blanco
black negro
Then we can do this:
% sort dict
black negro
blue azul
green verde
red rojo
white blanco
Here the output of sort went to the screen. To store the output in file we do this:
% sort dict >dict.sorted
You can check the contents of the file dict.sorted using cat , more , or emacs .
tail
displays the last 10 lines of the file essay.001 To see a specific number of lines, do
this:
% tail -n 20 essay.001
This displays the last 20 lines of the file.
tar
Use create compressed archives of directories and files, and also to extract directories
and files from an archive. Example:
% tar -tvzf foo.tar.gz
displays the file names in the compressed archive foo.tar.gz while
% tar -xvzf foo.tar.gz
extracts the files.
telnet
Use this command to log in to another machine from the machine you are currently
working on. For example, to log in to the machine "solitude", do this:
% telnet solitude
wc
Use this command to count the number of characters, words, and lines in a file.
Suppose, for example, that we have a file dict with contents
red rojo
green verde
blue azul
white blanco
black negro
Then we can do this
% wc dict
5 10 56 tmp
UNIX Commands:
Access Control
exit - terminate a shell (see "man sh" or "man csh")
logout - sign off; end session (C shell and bash shell only;)
passwd - change login password
rlogin - log in remotely to another UNIX system
ssh - secure shell
slogin - secure version of rlogin
yppasswd - change login password in yellow pages
Communications
mail - send and receive mail
mesg - permit or deny terminal messages and talk requests
pine - send and receive mail
talk - talk to another logged-in user
write - write to another logged-in user
Programming Tools
as - assembler, specific to each machine architecture
awk - pattern scanning and processing language
bc - online calculator
cc - C compiler
csh - C shell command interpreter
dbx - source-level debugging program
f77 - Fortran compiler
gdb - GNU Project debugger
gprof - display profile of called routines
kill - kill a process
ld - the UNIX loader
lex - generate lexical analysis programs
lint - check C source code
make - maintain large programs
maple - symbolic mathematics program
math - symbolic mathematics program
nice - run a command at low priority (see "man nice" or "man csh")
nohup - run a command immune to hangups
pc - Pascal compiler (xlp on ADS)
perl - Popular script interpreter
prof - display profile data
python - Python programming language
sh - Bourne shell command interpreter
yacc - generate input parsing programs
xcalc - graphical calulator under x
Documentation
apropos - locate commands by keyword lookup
find - locate file (i.e. find . -name *.tex -print)
info - start the info explorer program
man - find manual information about commands
whatis - describe what a command is
whereis - locate source, binary, or man page for a program
Editors