CMSC 106 CMSC 106 UNIX tutorial Fall 2006

Larry Herman
Jandelyn Plane
Gwen Kaye
July 27, 2007

Contents
1 Introduction 2

2 Getting started 3
2.1 Logging in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.2 Changing your password, and password security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.3 Logging out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

3 Printing files 4

4 The Emacs text editor 5

4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.2 Cancel command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.3 Creating a file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.4 Editing a file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.4.1 Basic cursor movement commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4.4.2 Basic commands for deleting text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4.4.3 Deleting entire lines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4.4.4 Adding a line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4.5 Saving a file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.6 Quitting Emacs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.7 Editing an existing file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.8 Chart of basic Emacs commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

5 Directories and basic file commands 9

5.1 Directories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
5.2 Listing files in current directory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.3 Constraints regarding filenames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
5.4 Creating a new directory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
5.5 Changing directories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
5.6 Creating new files in the current directory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
5.7 Displaying files’ contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
5.8 Copying a file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

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 5.9 Renaming (moving) a file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
5.10 Deleting (removing) a file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
5.11 Moving to a higher directory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
5.12 Directory hierarchy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
5.13 Removing (deleting) a subdirectory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
5.14 Copying a file from another directory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
5.15 Wildcard characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
5.16 Disk quota . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
5.17 Pipelines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

6 Compiling and running C programs 15

6.1 Compiling a program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
6.2 Output redirection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
6.3 Supplying an alternative executable filename . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
6.4 Required options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
6.5 Executing a program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
6.6 Input redirection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
6.7 Stopping a running program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

7 Submitting programs 17

8 Aliases 18
8.1 Adding aliases to the .aliases file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

9 Using the online reference information 19

10 Advanced Emacs features 19

10.1 Line numbers and undo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
10.2 Commands involved in moving text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
10.3 Multiple windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
10.4 Searching for and replacing text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
10.5 Getting help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
10.6 Chart of all Emacs commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
10.7 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

1 Introduction
This document is a basic introduction to the UNIX operating system, in particular the OIT Grace
UNIX Cluster and the UNIX facilities which you may need to use in your course. This tutorial covers
procedures for logging into the system, manipulating files and directories, compiling and running pro-
grams, submitting programs electronically, and other information. If you know all of this information
you don’t need to read most of this tutorial, but even so you will need to read about whatever material
you don’t know.
This tutorial is only an introduction, and hardly a comprehensive study of UNIX. UNIX is very
powerful, and only the most important capabilities which you may need for doing your work in this
course will be discussed. For those interested, further information on UNIX is available from OIT’s
website; see the link on the Information page of the class webpage.

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 This tutorial has explanatory material as well as activities you can perform. Information which
is to be typed exactly as it appears usually follows the UNIX prompt, which on the Grace cluster
depends on which of the machines you’re logged into, but will be of the format “posh:~:” (where
“posh” represents and will be replaced by the name of the specific machine you’re logged in to during
any session). The prompt is printed by the system to that it’s waiting for you to type your next
command in, but you don’t actually type the prompt yourself. Italic text represents information you
should fill in. Explanations will appear in regular type. Also, you should be aware that UNIX is
case-sensitive, that is, it distinguishes between lowercase and uppercase letters, so you will need to
type commands exactly as described.

2 Getting started
2.1 Logging in
There are three steps involved in logging into the system: specifying the machine you want to use,
giving your login id, and giving the password for that login id. Your login ID and password will just
be those for your Glue account.
Specifying the machine you will be using will vary from situation to situation. If you cannot
immediately see how to connect to the machines using the directions your TA has given in discussion
section, try coming to office hours. The Grace Cluster machines on which your Glue account works
can be logged in to by using ssh to connect to “grace.umd.edu”. Note that you have to use ssh to
connect to these machines, as telnet will not work. The OIT Grace cluster contains four machines,
two are running Sun’s Solaris version of UNIX, and two are running Linux. If you want to log into one
of the Solaris hosts specifically you can use ssh to connect to “solaris.grace.umd.edu”, while you can
connect to a Linux host using “linux.grace.umd.edu”. If you just log into grace.umd.edu you could be
connected to either type of host.

2.2 Changing your password, and password security

The password is the major part of the security for a particular account. In order to insure that no one
else has access to your account, your first action upon receiving a new account should be to change
the password to something which you will find easy to remember, but only you will know.
Several times over the last few years people have broken into other people’s accounts on UMCP
systems by figuring out passwords. If this happens to your account all your files could be destroyed.
Perhaps this could occur the day that a project in this course is due. Furthermore, your account could
be used to break into other students’ accounts, which could cause you no end of trouble. To minimize
the chances of occurrences such as these, use the following guidelines in choosing a password for your
account:
1. Do not use any word from the dictionary or anyone’s name.
2. Do not use any part of your name, your login name, or any other name which someone who
knows you might know to try.
3. A password for a UNIX system should be six to eight characters. It should include a mix of
upper and lower case letters, digits, and punctuation. Some recent guidelines say that the first
or last characters of the password should not be digits.
4. Do not use any pattern on the keyboard.
To change your password, at the % prompt simply type:

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 posh:~: passwd
You will be prompted for your new password. The request for you to retype your new password is
simply to insure you didn’t make any typing mistakes. When you are done, your new password will
be the password for your account until you change it again.
Always follow the following security practices related to passwords:
1. Never email your password to anyone, even a friend.
2. Do not write your password where anyone else may have access to it, even a friend.
3. Do not tell your password to anyone! This includes the instructional staff of this course; we have
no reason to ever ask for anyone’s password, and also includes your friends.
4. It’s a good idea to change your password periodically, just in case someone has been able to
guess your password or figure it out another way (perhaps by watching you type in one of the
labs while you were logging in). Someone might know your password at some point but just not
have used your account yet.
5. Don’t ever leave your terminal unattended in a public lab where someone could get access to
your account, even if you are just stepping out of the room for a minute. Lock the terminal if
possible, or log out. It would be better to log out and have to wait for another computer when
you return than to have someone steal or ruin all of your files.
Note that you should never leave your terminal unattended even if a friend you know from class
is nearby to watch it for you. Supposed friends have victimized students in the past by stealing
or ruining their files without their knowledge.
You could be held liable by the University for any damage caused by someone using your account,
even without your knowledge, if they were able to access your account through negligence such as
described above.

2.3 Logging out

After figuring out how to log in to the Grace systems and change your password if needed, you should
next learn, before anything else, how to log out. Always log out before leaving any publicly–accessible
computer, to avoid giving others access to your account. For an orderly exit, at the prompt type
posh:~: logout
You can log into the system again using your new password.

3 Printing files
The command to print one or more files to the OIT printers is:
posh:~: qpr -x duplex -q dispatch names–of–files–to–print
If you want to print on only one side of the page, omit the “-x duplex” option:
posh:~: qpr -q dispatch names–of–files–to–print
If you really want to save paper, you can use the mpage utility to print your files reduced so that
two pages fit on each side of each piece of paper. The command to do so is:
posh:~: mpage -2ft -Pdispatch names–of–files–to–print

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 Note there is no space between “-P” and “dispatch”. Since this command will print two pages
per each side of a piece of paper, and print on both sides of the page, therefore four pages of each file
will be printed on each piece of paper.
To use mpage to print two pages per each side of paper, but only single–sided, omit the ’t’ in the
options above:
posh:~: mpage -2f -Pdispatch names–of–files–to–print
Printouts sent to these printers can be picked up at the OIT dispatch counter, which is located at
the entrance of the A.V. Williams building closest to the Wind Tunnel. If you view the A.V. Williams
building as a large U, with the main entrance in the middle of the U, the OIT dispatch entrance is at
the upper–left–corner of the U; look for the sign which says “OIT Dispatch”. If you’re walking out of
the front of the CSIC building and you go between the Wind Tunnel and A.V. Williams, this entrance
will be on your right. You pick up printouts at the window by giving your Glue account ID. Note
that you can’t get to the dispatch counter from the rest of A.V. Williams; you have to exit and walk
around to the entrance which says “OIT Dispatch”.
Besides printing at the dispatch window, anyone with a WAM or Glue account can use the printers
in WAM and Glue labs, but you must first get a print account and pay by the page. Having a print
account can be convenient, so you don’t have to walk to the A.V. Williams building to get a printout.
Information on getting a print account and using pay–for–print can be found on OIT’s website; see
the link from the Information page of the class webpage.

4 The Emacs text editor

If you happen to have used an integrated development environment (such as those available from
Microsoft) to write programs, you will find the development process in UNIX is a little different.
Although a number of more sophisticated program development tools are available in UNIX these are
beyond the scope of this course, therefore the basic program development utilities are described here.
To write and run a C program in UNIX you would first use a UNIX text editor to type in the
program code and save it to a file. A text editor is similar to a word processor, and is used to create
and save text files, such as C programs. You would then run the C compiler, which is a separate
program. The compiler produces an executable program as a file in your directory, which you then
run or execute. This is called the edit–compile–execute cycle, and this tutorial addresses in detail
what has to be done in all three steps. If errors occur at any step (the program fails to compile, or it
compiles and runs but doesn’t work correctly) you would have to figure out what’s wrong and use the
text editor again to make changes to it, and save it again so you can compile again.
Some students may know the Pico text editor, available in most UNIX installations, and used
within the Pine email program. A simple text editor like Pico is suitable for editing very small files or
email messages, but is inadequate for creating larger programs such as you will write in this course. If
the only text editor you know is Pico this is the time to learn and begin using a better one. The two
most common general–purpose UNIX text editors are vi and Emacs. If you already know vi feel free
to use it for your projects. This tutorial explains the basic Emacs commands. The best way to learn
these commands is to experiment and practice with them.
If you’re running Emacs in such a way that it opens up in its own window (for example, if you are
running Emacs while logged in from a UNIX workstation) then you can use commands in its menu
system by clicking on them with the mouse. This is sufficiently self–explanatory that it won’t be
discussed here further. However, many people may be using Emacs while connecting from a Windows

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machine, and the menu commands can’t be accessed using the mouse, so below we’ll explain how to
use the most common Emacs commands just using keystrokes.

4.1 Introduction
The Emacs editor uses modeless editing, meaning that commands always use a special key followed
by a letter or other symbol. For example, Control–f, that is, holding down the Control key and
pressing ’f’ at the same time, will move the cursor forward one character. Unless preceded by a special
key, ordinary characters typed are simply inserted in the document being edited. In the following
discussion C indicates the Control key while M indicates the Escape key (also known in Emacs as
the Meta key). C–f indicates that you should press the Control and, while holding the Control
key, then press the ’f’ key. On the other hand, M–v means you should press Escape and release it,
and then press ’v’.

4.2 Cancel command

Before you start Emacs, you should know about the cancel command, which is C–g. This should cancel
any pending Emacs command. If you type the wrong keys and aren’t sure what Emacs is doing, or
perhaps what it’s waiting for you to type, C–g should cancel it, and leave Emacs back in its normal
mode.

4.3 Creating a file

You’re encouraged to start Emacs now and try the commands as they’re described. For example, start
Emacs with the name of a file to be created (suppose you want to use the name “tempfile”):
posh:~: emacs tempfile
If Emacs doesn’t start (especially you are logging in from a PC running Windows), and an error
message about a DISPLAY environment variable is printed instead, run Emacs with the “-nw” option
(e.g., “emacs -nw tempfile”).
When Emacs begins it will start with an essentially blank screen. The second–to–last line is the
status line, which gives the name of the file you are editing. The very bottom line is where you will
have to enter any necessary information which Emacs may ask you. If you start Emacs and begin to
type a few characters, as you enter the first character ”**” will appear in the left of the status line
near the bottom of the screen. This indicates that you have made changes in the file since it was last
saved (or, if it’s a new file, it has never been saved). Now type a few characters and try saving your
work and exiting Emacs, by typing C−x C−s to save (hold down the Control key and press x, then
hold down the Control key and press s). To exit Emacs then type C−x C−c, and you should find
yourself back at the UNIX prompt.

4.4 Editing a file

The information below presents the basic commands for modifying or editing files. Besides the arrow
keys and page–up/page–down keys, Emacs has other key combinations you can use for basic cursor
movement if desired.

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4.4.1 Basic cursor movement commands

forward one character right arrow or C−f

backward one character left arrow or C−b
previous (up) one line up arrow or C−p
next (down) one line down arrow or C−n
one whole page up page–up or M−v
one whole page down page–down or C−v
beginning of current line C−a
end of current line C−e
beginning of file M−<
end of file M−>

Experiment with these commands so that you will become familiar with them; for instance, type
M−> and see that the cursor moves to the bottom of the file you’re editing.

4.4.2 Basic commands for deleting text

Deleting a character forward means the character under the cursor is deleted, and all the characters
on the rest of the line (from the next character until the end) are moved one position to the left. If
the cursor is located after the last character on the line, delete character forward will cause the next
line to move up and be joined to the end of the current line, right after the cursor position.
Deleting a character backwards means the character to the left of the cursor position is deleted,
and all the rest of the line is shifted to the left (including the character under the cursor and the cursor
itself). If the cursor is located at the beginning of a line, delete character backward will cause the
current line to move up and be joined to the end of the previous line.
delete character forward C−d
delete character backward the backspace key on the keyboard
delete characters to end of line C−k

4.4.3 Deleting entire lines

C−k will remove or delete all of the current line after the current cursor position, so if you move to
the beginning of a line and press C−k it will delete the entire line, but a blank line remains. Type
C−d, or C−k again, to remove the end-of-line marker and remove this blank line. If you want to keep
part of the beginning of a line but delete the last part you can use it to do so; just move the cursor to
the end of the part you want to keep and press C−k.

4.4.4 Adding a line

To add a line below an existing line, move the cursor to the end of the line before where you want to
add the new one and hit RETURN to open up a new line. Alternatively, you can move the cursor to
the beginning of the line where you want to add a new one and type C−o to open up a new line after
the current cursor position.

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4.5 Saving a file
So far any work you have done hasn’t been written to a file. It is all stored in Emacs’ memory. To
write the current contents of the text stored in Emacs to the file whose name you typed when starting
Emacs, that is, “tempfile” above, type C−x C−s again, as you did earlier.
Very important: be sure to save your work often while you are working. Every programmer has
at least one horror story of typing a program for hours and just as it’s finished the power goes out or
the computer locks up for some reason, and all their work is lost. A good habit to get into is to type
C–x C–s every several minutes while you are working. Also, in order to avoid inadvertently deleting or
incorrectly changing the only copy of a file it’s essential to save at least one backup copy in a different
directory or with a different filename, using the UNIX commands explained below.

4.6 Quitting Emacs

If you type C–x C–c to quit Emacs and you have made any changes to your document, Emacs asks
you (in the very bottom line) whether you want to save your file. Answer by pressing ’y’ or ’n’. If
you are editing more than one file (in different windows, as described below) and several of them have
been changed, Emacs will ask you about saving each one. Emacs will then ask
Modified buffers exist; exit anyway (yes or no)?
If you’re sure you want to quit, type “yes” and press return.

4.7 Editing an existing file

If you have exited editing a file like “tempfile”, to return to it for modification, give the command:
posh:~: emacs tempfile
When you edit an existing file and update it, Emacs will save the original version as a backup copy
by renaming it. The backup will have the same name as the original file but with a ~ character at the
end. For example, if you make changes to a file named proj1.c, Emacs will save the original version
of the file as proj1.c~. If you edit the file again and make more changes Emacs will again save the
current version as proj1.c~. If you ever find that you’ve incorrectly changed a file and want to revert
to its previous state you can use thie backup file, after renaming it to prevent Emacs from overwriting
it (when you next edit the original file).

4.8 Chart of basic Emacs commands

If you’re a new Emacs user you can print this chart and keep it handy while you’re first using Emacs.
C– means hold down the Control key while pressing the next key mentioned.
M– means you should press the Escape key, release it, and then press the next key mentioned.

Cancel command:
C–g

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Basic cursor movement commands:
forward one character C–f
backward one character C–b
previous (up) one line C–p
next (down) one line C–n
beginning of current line C–a
end of current line C–e
one whole page up M–v
one whole page down C–v
beginning of file M–<
end of file M–>

Basic commands for deleting text:

delete character forward C–d
the backspace key on the keyboard, or C–h, which
delete character backward
also does this
delete characters to end of line C–k

Saving and quitting:

save file C–x C–s
quit Emacs C–x C–c

Several additional powerful and convenient features of Emacs are described in Section 10 at the end
of this tutorial, which can make editing files much more convenient, but since the commands described
in this section are sufficient to get started with we’ll defer discussion of those till later, after basic
UNIX commands have been explained.

5 Directories and basic file commands

5.1 Directories
Directories are where files are stored, and UNIX’s directory organization is hierarchical. At the top
of this hierarchy is the root directory, designated by a slash (/). Under the root are other directories
which contain information such as often–used utilities, and user and system accounts. At any time
whichever directory you are currently examining (or located in) is called the current directory. You
can move from one directory to another in the UNIX filesystem analogous to how you can move from
room to room within a building. When you first log in your current directory is your own account’s
home directory. You can only change or move to directories for which you have been given permission.
Subdirectories allow you to easily organize files by grouping related ones (you can think of them as
analogous to folders you may have used in other graphically-based operating systems). For instance,
you can store all the files for your first project in a subdirectory named proj1, all the files for your
second project in a subdirectory named proj2, etc. In this way, even if some of the files you use for
Projects #1 and #2 have the same names there won’t be any conflict and you can have complete
copies of both projects in your account at the same time, because two files in different directories can
have the same name.

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 In UNIX a single period (.) refers to the current directory, and two adjacent periods (..) refers
to the directory one level above (closer to the root) the current directory. The tilde symbol (~) refers
to your home directory, and the ~ followed by some other account ID refers to that account’s home
directory. Your home directory corresponds to your Glue login id and will not change; you will be
in your home directory as you log in each time. The current directory corresponds to your home
directory as you first log in, but the current directory will change each time you move to another
directory; things in the current directory will be assumed as the default when you give a command.
A pathname is a description of where a file (usually one which is not in the current directory)
appears, including the directory names which form a path to the directory where the file is located.
The slash (/) designates the root directory, and is also used to separate directory names in a pathname.
For instance, the pathname
/afs/glue/class/fall2006/cmsc/106/0101/public/testfile
refers to a file named “testfile” located in the “public” subdirectory of the “0101” subdirectory
of the “106” directory, etc. Files which are not in the current directory are sometimes specified using
a pathname showing where they are in relation to the root directory, as in this pathname. They are
even more commonly specified relative to the current directory or relative to a home directory (yours
or another user’s), using ~. The examples below show different ways of referring to files and use the
symbols mentioned above.

5.2 Listing files in current directory

List just the names of files and subdirectories in the current directory by typing
posh:~: ls
Any file whose name begins with the period character is a “hidden” file, and not ordinarily listed
by ls. Your account contains several of these files, including some which are used when you first log in.
To list all your files listed by ls plus any hidden files you have to supply an option to the ls command;
options modify the default behavior of commands. Options in UNIX are preceded by a minus sign.
To list all your files type
posh:~: ls -a
To get more information about the files and directories, type:
posh:~: ls -l
For each file or directory in the current directory, there will be a line which looks like this.

-rw-r--r-- 1 gwen osl 2565 Nov 16 2004 office

drwxr-xr-x 2 gwen osl 512 Jan 5 2004 prereg

The following columns are of interest:

1. The first character ’d’ indicates this is a directory, ’-’ indicates it’s a file.
2. The next nine characters specify the access permissions for this file or directory, using three
sequences of three characters each to indicate permissions. The first three of these characters
indicates the type of access which the person who created the file has for it: read (r), write(w),
and execute(x). A dash in place of any one of these letters signifies that the user does not have
that type of permission for the file or directory. A user needs execute permission to change or
move into a directory. The next six characters refer to permissions other people have to access
files, which isn’t relevant for this course.

10
 3. The third column specifies the name of the owner of the file, which will be your login ID for the
files you create.
4. The fifth column has the size of the file, in bytes.
5. The next three columns have the date of creation or of last modification of the file or directory.
6. The last column gives the name of the file or directory.

5.3 Constraints regarding filenames

When creating files (or directories) of your own, any character can be part of a filename (or a directory
name) subject to the following constraints. If a period (.) is used as the first character of a filename
or directory name, the file or directory will be hidden. If / appears in the middle of a filename what
comes before it will be interpreted as a subdirectory name, which probably isn’t what was desired.
Avoid file or directory names with - or # as the first character, or ~ as the last character. Since - is
used to identify options for commands, a filename with - will often be interpreted by commands as
an option instead of a filename. File or directory names which begin with # are considered temporary
files and may periodically be deleted by the system. Filenames ending in ~ are treated as backup files
by Emacs, and may be therefore be overwritten.

5.4 Creating a new directory

To create a new directory called “literature” within the current directory, type
posh:~: mkdir literature
List your current directory to see that this new directory has been created.
posh:~: ls
posh:~: ls -l

5.5 Changing directories

Changing to a directory means making that named directory the default for commands given. This
named directory then is called the current working directory.
Change to this new directory:
posh:~: cd literature
You will see that there are no files in this directory at this point.
posh:~: ls
While you are located in the literature subdirectory, the files in your home directory can be listed
by typing any one of the following:
posh:~: ls ..
posh:~: ls
posh:~: ls ~loginID
(where as above loginID represents your own Glue user ID or login ID).

11
5.6 Creating new files in the current directory
Using a text editor (such as Emacs), create two small files in this directory. The first file named
“file1” should contain the following text:
This is file1.
The second file named “file2” should contain:
This is file2.
List the files in this directory in the way you did above. You should see file1 and file2 there now.

5.7 Displaying files’ contents

The cat command displays the entire contents of a file, so you can see file2’s contents by typing:
posh:~: cat file2
If the file being displayed contains more than a screenful of text, the more command is preferable,
since it displays the file’s contents one page at a time, pausing after each page.
posh:~: more file2
After each page is displayed pressing the space bar (when the “--More--” prompt is seen) causes
the next page to be displayed, while pressing return or enter causes only the next one line to be shown.
Pressing the ’q’ key quits displaying the file’s contents.

5.8 Copying a file

Now copy the contents of file1 to a new file which will be called file3.
posh:~: cp file1 file3
List the files in the directory. file3 should have been added to file1 and file2 in the listing.
Look at file3 to see what it has in it, using the cat command:
posh:~: cat file3
Since you’re still located in the subdirectory you created of your home directory, to make a copy
of file1 in your home directory with the same name you can use any one of the following:
posh:~: cp file1 ..
posh:~: cp file1 ~
posh:~: cp file1 ~loginID
If the second word after the cp command is a directory name (not a filename) then the file will be
copied to that directory, using the same name as it presently has.
To make a copy of file1 in your home directory with a different name, such as “testfile”, you can
use any of the following:
posh:~: cp file1 ../testfile
posh:~: cp file1 ~/testfile
posh:~: cp file1 ~loginID/testfile
If the second word after the cp command is a filename with another directory’s name in front of it,
then the file will be copied to that directory, with that name. The first of these commands shows where
you want testfile to be located relative to the current directory (i.e., one directory above the current
one). The second and third show where you want testfile to be located relative to your home directory.
If your login ID (home directory) was named student123 and you knew that it was located, for example,
in the directory /homes, you could also make a copy of file1 from the current directory to your home
directory with the name testfile using the command “cp file1 /homes/student123/testfile”, but
since the full path name is extra work to type there isn’t much advantage to doing so.

12
5.9 Renaming (moving) a file
“Move” file1 by giving it the new name file4:
posh:~: mv file1 file4
Look at file4 to see what it has in it:
posh:~: cat file4
List using ls. Now the directory should show file2, file3, and file4. Obviously, the difference between
a copy and a move is that copy makes an additional copy of the file while move “moves” the file’s
contents to another file. It should be noted that there is not actually a move, but a renaming of the
file. Since file1 was moved to file4, file1 is no longer in the directory.

5.10 Deleting (removing) a file

posh:~: rm file3
Now list. The directory should show just file2 and file4.

5.11 Moving to a higher directory

posh:~: cd ..
Now list. You are now back in the directory which is one level higher in the directory tree, in this
case the original directory.

5.12 Directory hierarchy

A diagram of the hierarchical structure of your account now looks like this.
<loginID>

file1 testfile literature

file2 file4
But actually your “account” is just a subdirectory in the directory of accounts on the system. To
see the path, that is, the chain of directories leading from the root to your account, type the command
to print the working directory:
posh:~: pwd
The first slash in this listing of directories represents the root. The names which follow represent
directories leading directly from the root to your account directory. The slashes other than the first
are delimiters. cd .. will change to the next higher directory, and
posh:~: cd ~loginID
will return to your own directory (or as a shortcut you could simply type cd, which returns you to
your home directory.)

5.13 Removing (deleting) a subdirectory

The rmdir command deletes a subdirectory. A subdirectory which contains any files can’t be deleted.
All files contained must be deleted before a subdirectory can be removed.

13
5.14 Copying a file from another directory
You may, if the permissions are set correctly, copy files from another account or directory. Your
instructor may have given you the name of a public directory for your class where you can access
certain materials which may be placed there. Try listing the files in that directory.
posh:~: ls -l /afs/glue/class/fall2006/cmsc/106/0101/public
Say there is a file named “tempfile” in this directory which you want to copy to your home directory.
You can either do this if you are located in your home directory, or if you are located in the directory
/afs/glue/class/fall2006/cmsc/106/0101/public.
The first way, assuming you are already located in your home directory:
posh:~: cp /afs/glue/class/fall2006/cmsc/106/0101/public/temp .
or
posh:~: cp /afs/glue/class/fall2006/cmsc/106/0101/public/temp temp2
The second form above copies the file temp to your home directory and names it temp2, while the
first form copies it to your home directory keeping its original name temp.
The second way to copy the file would be to change your location to the directory where the file
is (/afs/glue/class/fall2006/cmsc/106/0101/public), and copy the file to your home directory
from there:
posh:~: cd /afs/glue/class/fall2006/cmsc/106/0101/public
posh:~: cp temp ~
or
posh:~: cd /afs/glue/class/fall2006/cmsc/106/0101/public
posh:~: cp temp ~/temp2
Again, the first form retains the name temp for the copied file, while the second form makes a copy
of the file with the new name temp2.
A small test file named “testfile” has been placed in this directory. Experiment by copying this
file using both of these methods, using different file names. Once you have a few files in your directory
or even in some subdirectories, you can also experiment with the other UNIX commands listed above,
such as those to rename files, view files, etc.
Using the –r option with cp copies a subdirectory along with all the files it contains, from one
location to another.

5.15 Wildcard characters

Wildcard characters can be used in file names to stand for other characters. Using them can often make
commands easier to type, or can allow several separate commands to be replaced by one combined
command. UNIX has a powerful set of wildcard characters and methods for specifying file names; we
will present only the two most useful here, which are the characters ? and *.
A ? in a file name appearing in a command stands for any other character, while an * in a file
stands for any number of zero or more characters. To illustrate their use, suppose your directory
contains the following files:
answer2.txt answer5.txt hw1.ans hw3 program2 proj3.c
answer3.txt answer6.txt hw2 hw3.ans proj1.c proj4.c
answer4.txt hw1 hw2.ans program1 proj2.c txt

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 The command “ls hw?” lists all files whose names are “hw” followed by any other character, in
other words, in this case the files hw1, hw2, and hw3.
The command “ls hw*” lists all files whose names begin with “hw” and are followed by any other
characters, in other words, the files hw1, hw1.ans, hw2, hw2.ans, hw3, and hw3.ans.
The command “ls *txt” lists all files whose names end in “txt”, in other words, the files an-
swer2.txt, answer3.txt, answer4.txt, answer5.txt, answer6.txt, and just txt.
The command “ls proj?.c” lists the files proj1.c, proj2.c, proj3.c, and proj4.c.
The command “ls pro*” lists program1, program2, proj1.c, proj2.c, proj3.c, and proj4.c.
The command “ls *2*” lists all files whose names contain a 2, which is answer2.txt, hw2, hw2.ans,
program2, and proj2.c.
Other commands besides ls can use wildcard characters, as in the following:
copy all files whose names end in “.c” from the
posh:~: cp ~fred/*.c .
user fred’s directory to your own
posh:~: rm hw? delete hw1, hw2, and hw3
Be very careful when using wildcard characters with the mv and rm commands, which can delete
or overwrite a file. If you’re not sure whether a command will work correctly, either don’t try it, or
make backup copies of your files under different names, or in a subdirectory, ahead of time. It is a
very good idea to always keep backup copies of any important files, in case you accidentally delete or
change them.

5.16 Disk quota

Every account has a limit to the amount of information which can be stored. To see what your limit
is and how much space you have available, type the command “quota”. This lists your current disk
usage as well as your quota. If you see, during the semester, that you are getting close to your quota
you will need to delete any unnecessary files. Be careful not to remove any important files, because
once you delete a file it cannot be recovered.

5.17 Pipelines
UNIX pipelines are used to run two commands, with the output of one command being used as the
input for another command. The simplest form of a piped command is:
posh:~: command1 | command2
This executes command1 and instead of sending its output to the screen it becomes the input for
the command command2. For example:
posh:~: ls | more
Here the list of files in the current directory is displayed one screen at a time.

6 Compiling and running C programs

6.1 Compiling a program
To compile a program written in C, first note that it must be in a file whose name has the extension
“.c”. We will discuss in lecture and discussion what a C program looks like and what information it
must contain, as well as how to use a text editor to type a C program into a file in your account, if
you don’t know already. The name of the C compiler we will be using on the Grace Cluster is “gcc”,
and if you had a C program in a file named test.c it could be compiled like so:

15
 posh:~: gcc test.c

6.2 Output redirection

If your program had any mistakes you would see error messages when you tried to compile it. Using
Emacs (or another text editor), you would have to find the causes of these error messages, correct
them, and recompile. Sometimes you will have more than a single screenful of error messages. As it’s
difficult to read the error messages in this case, it will be helpful to send a list of these messages to a
file called, for example, “myerrors” by expanding on the command to compile:
posh:~: gcc test.c >& myerrors
The >& tells the operating system that the results of the command to the left (which compiles the
program) are not to be printed to the screen, but are instead to be written to the file name which
appears to the right. You can then look in “myerrors” to get a list of your errors. If there are no
compilation errors the file will be empty.
If you wanted to see the errors listed on the screen one page at a time you could alternatively type
posh:~: gcc test.c |& more
This runs the command to the left of the |& symbol, sending all its output to the command “more”
instead of sending it to the screen or to a file. The |& form sends not only the regular output of the
compilation command on the left of the pipe symbol as the input of the more command on the right,
but includes error messages as well. The “more” command, discussed in Section 5.7 above, displays
information one screenful at a time; in this case the information is the warnings and errors produced
by the compiler, rather than a file’s contents (the compiler doesn’t usually print any output except
error messages).
Once you correct all of your errors and you have a clean compile, the executable file created from
your program will be placed in the current directory and will be named “a.out”. To see this file in
your directory, type:
posh:~: ls -l
You will notice that a.out has executable permission since it is an executable file.

6.3 Supplying an alternative executable filename

If you use the –o option you can tell the compiler to put the executable program in a file with a name
other than a.out. For instance,
posh:~: gcc test.c -o test.x
puts the executable program in a file called “test.x”. There is one big advantage to using an
executable file name other than a.out. Only one file in a directory can have the name a.out at a
time, so if you want to run several different programs you would have to compile each one first, but
if you compile them and give them different executable file names when compiling then they can all
be present at the same time and you can run them afterward as many times as necessary, without
compiling again.
You execute a program in UNIX just by typing its name, such as
posh:~: test.x
As mentioned above, the Grace cluster contains two Linux hosts and two Solaris hosts. An exe-
cutable program compiled for one architecture won’t run on the other architecture. If you compile a
program and log in another time and try to run it but get an error which says “Exec format error.
Binary file not executable.”, you can just recompile it. Note that you can see what type of host you’re
logged into using the UNIX command “uname”.

16
6.4 Required options
All your C programs in this course should be written in ANSI C (standard C), which means they
must compile and run correctly with the -ansi, -pedantic-errors, -Werror, and -Wall options to
gcc which cause the compiler to strictly enforce the standard (these are options for the version of the
C compiler on the OIT Grace Cluster which we’ll be using). Just add these options after gcc when
compiling:
posh:~: gcc -ansi -pedantic-errors -Werror -Wall test.c -o test.x

6.5 Executing a program

You execute a program just by typing its name, such as
posh:~: test.x

6.6 Input redirection

If a program reads a lot of information and needs to be executed many times it would be too time–
consuming to type the information each time the program was run. You can instead type the input
data into a file using a text editor and run the program so that every time it reads information it
doesn’t look to the keyboard for data to be typed in, but instead reads the next value from this data
file. To run the above program so it reads all of its input from the file “my–data”, you would type:
posh:~: test.x < my-data
When a program is run with input redirected it reads its input without it being displayed upon
the screen; however, all output will appear. Both input and output redirection can be used with the
same command, as in “test.x < infile > outfile”.

6.7 Stopping a running program

If a program of yours doesn’t seem to be working right you can always stop it by typing C–c (hold
down the control key and press c). Most UNIX commands can be stopped as well by typing C–c.

7 Submitting programs
You will submit your programming projects electronically; project grading then involves the instruc-
tional staff running the programs to determine that they are giving correct results, and looking at your
programming style.
The submit program can be run as follows:
posh:~: submit semester department course section assignment–number filename–to–submit
If you are submitting Project #1, use 1 for the assignment number above, 2 for Project #2, etc.,
as instructed in the assignment for each project. The name of the file you are submitting, containing
your project code, should appear in place of “name–of–file–to–be–submitted ” in this command.
If your program is named proj1.c you would either have to be in the directory which contains
proj1.c in order to submit it, or when submitting you would have to give the name of the file including
its pathname. If you were located in the directory where proj1.c is located, you could submit that
program as the first assignment for your class by typing a command like:

17
 posh:~: submit 2006 fall cmsc 106 0101 1 proj1.c
Of course you should use your correct course number and section number, and the correct project
number and filename in the command.
You can submit any project more than once. See your syllabus for your instructor’s grading policies
regarding multiple submissions.
Submit only your exact project file containing your source code for each assignment, otherwise you
will probably receive little credit for the project. Be absolutely certain you submit the correct file
by typing the right filename in place of “name–of–file–to–be–submitted ”, and that you submit your
project using the correct project number. You can be graded only on what you actually submit.
Come to office hours before your first project’s due date if you need more explanation or help in
figuring out how to create and submit projects. If you want to make sure you understand how to
submit, you can create a small file using the text editor, and try submitting it now using project
number 0.

8 Aliases
UNIX allows you to create a shorter alias to facilitate typing long or complicated commands. A
command like
alias word "replacement"
will cause word when typed in to be replaced by replacement (which can consist of several words
if desired).

8.1 Adding aliases to the .aliases file

One special hidden file, named “.cshrc”, contains commands which are automatically executed every
time you log in. Any commands placed there will therefore be executed and set up every time you
log in. On Glue and Grace systems, the .cshrc file will automatically read any aliases in a file in your
home directory named “.aliases”, if it exists.
Now that you know what aliases are, if you want to create any of your own as shortcuts for typing
long commands you can edit your .aliases file using a text editor, and add the desired aliases at the
bottom. For instance, many users like to alias ls to “ls -F”, which makes it easy to identify the types
of files when they are listed, because different types of files are marked with a special character after
their name (executable files’ names end in ’*’, directory names end in ’/’, etc.). Try this option and
if you like it you can add it to your .aliases file. You can add any other aliases you find useful.
A sample .aliases file with two added aliases might be:
# This file is where to place shell aliases or functions, or modify
# the system defaults.
#
alias gcc "gcc -ansi -pedantic-errors -Werror -Wall"
alias ls "ls -F"

Note that if you make any changes to this file you must either log out and log back in, or execute
the command
source ~/.aliases
before they will take effect.

18
9 Using the online reference information
There is an online reference manual which is referenced using the “man” command. For instance, to
access the manual’s information for cp, type
posh:~: man cp
If there is more than one screenful of information on a subject, advance to the next screen by
hitting the space bar. If you don’t want to see any more information on the subject simply type ’q’
(for quit).

10 Advanced Emacs features

If you have no experience with Emacs you will probably want to skip this section for now. The
introduction to Emacs in the section above is sufficient for you to be able to create and edit small
files. In a couple of weeks however, after you’ve used Emacs a bit, be sure you return and read this
section. Some tasks can be performed far more easily and quickly if you know and can use several
more advanced commands, rather than having to do things the simplest way.

10.1 Line numbers and undo

goto–line F10 e g return number
undo C–
Compilers commonly print error messages along with the number of the line in the program which
contained the error. As programs become larger, it’s convenient to be able to go directly to a particular
line given its number, rather than searching around for it. The goto–line command is reachable via
one of Emacs’ menus, but even if you’re not using Emacs in such a way that you can access its menu
system with the mouse, you can still use this command, by first pressing F10. Then hit ’e’ (to reach
the edit menu), then ’g’ (for goto–line), then press the return or enter key, and Emacs will prompt
you for a line number by printing “Goto line:”. Type in the number of the line you want, and press
return or enter, and the cursor will jump to that line.
Sometimes you may type a command by mistake and delete or change part of your file. Emacs’
undo command is very convenient, as it allows you to keep undoing the preceding commands. If
you press C– (you have to hold down the Control key while pressing Shift and the key with the
underscore) once, Emacs will undo the last command you performed. Press it again (before performing
any other command) and Emacs will undo the command before that, etc.

10.2 Commands involved in moving text

Many Emacs commands operate on all the characters within a region you specify. The region consists
of all the text between something called the mark and something called the point. The point is simply
the current location of the cursor. The mark is an invisible text marker in the file you place to indicate
which text some command should apply to. To cut or move a block of text, you must place a mark a
one end of the text and then place the cursor at the other end of the text to establish the point before
indicating whether you want to copy or kill the text. In Emacs, deleting (or cutting) a block of text
from a file is called killing it, and the area where the text is stored after being removed is called the kill
ring. Text is moved by deleting it, moving the cursor to another location, and inserting it (“yanking

19
it back”, in Emacs terminology) from the kill ring. Text can be copied by placing it in the kill ring
without deleting it, moving the cursor, and inserting it from the kill ring.
set mark at current cursor position C–@ or C–Space (the space bar)
kill region (cut) C–w
copy region to kill ring without deleting M–w
yank back last region killed (paste) C–y
To move some text from one place in a file to another, place the cursor at the beginning of the
text you want to move and type C−@ or C−Space to put the mark here (C−@ is typed by holding
Control and pressing both Shift and @, which appears above the ’2’ key). Then move the cursor
to the end of the text you want to move and type C−w to kill the region. Lastly, move the cursor to
the location you want to move the text to and type C−y.

10.3 Multiple windows

open new window C–x 2
open or read a different file into the current
C–x C–f
window
move to other window C–x o
make current window the only window C–x 1
One advantage of Emacs is that you can display and edit more than one file at once, where each
appears in a different window (the Emacs window is divided into two or more windows appearing one
below the other). For instance, you could view a program’s input file in one window while writing the
program which is supposed to process it in another, and edit either one of them. To divide the single
Emacs window in two type C–x 2. This opens a second window, where both windows are editing the
same file. This may be useful if you are editing a large file and want to see one part while working on
another part. To edit a different file in one of the windows type C–x C–f in one window and enter the
name of the file to be edited, and that file will be loaded into that window. To move from one window
to another type C–x followed by the ’o’ key, and to make the window which the cursor is positioned
in be the only window just type C–x 1.

10.4 Searching for and replacing text

enter incremental search mode C–s
search for next occurrence C–s
remove last letter of search word or phrase backspace or delete
exit search and return to starting position C–g
exit search, leaving cursor at current position return or enter

query replace M–%

y do replacement
n don’t do replacement
C–g exit replace mode

In editing a large program you may want to search for a particular word or phrase in the text,
without having to move around the document searching for it. Typing C–s will begin an incremental

20
search for whatever characters you type. Emacs will print “I-search:” in the bottom line, and as
you type characters they will appear in this line, and the cursor will move through the text to the
first point where a word or phrase containing those characters appears. For example, move the cursor
to the beginning of your sample text, press C–s, and type “the”. When you type the first letter ’t’,
the cursor will move to the beginning of the word “typing” on the first line, which is where the first
’t’ in the text appears. When you type the ’h’, the cursor jumps to the word “this”, or the first
incidence of the letters “th” in your text, and when you type the letter ’e’ the cursor jumps to the
first occurrence of the word “the” later in the same line. If you press C–s again now, the cursor will
jump to the next occurrence of the word “the”; try it four times and see. Note that both “the” and
“The” are found, irrespective of capitalization. If you press C–s a fifth time a beep will indicate that
the word “the” isn’t found again in your text.
In incremental search mode, typing backspace or delete removes the last character of the word
being searched for, and the cursor will jump backwards to the first occurrence of the new, shorter
word. Pressing return or enter will exit the search mode, leaving the cursor positioned at the text
which was found. Typing C–g will quit the search mode but return the cursor to the starting position.
Often it’s necessary to systematically change all (or many) occurrences of some character string
to another string. For instance, you may need to rename a variable in your program. Finding and
changing each occurrence manually is tedious if the variable appears many times, and it’s easily possible
to miss one or more locations. Emacs allows any word or phrase to be systematically replaced with
another. Typing M–% begins query replace mode, where Emacs will ask you (in the bottom line)
“Query replace:” and wait for you to type a word or phrase and press return or enter. Emacs then
waits for you to type a word or phrase which it will replace the first word or phrase with. Emacs will
then go through the document, from the current cursor position to the end, asking at each occurrence
of the first word or phrase if you want to replace it with the second word or phrase. Press the space bar
to perform the replacement, or the ’n’ key to prevent the replacement, of each occurrence of the word
or phrase to be changed. Pressing C–g exits query replace mode (but doesn’t undo any replacements
performed). As an example, try typing M–% followed by “tell” and “explain to”, to replace both
occurrences of the word “tell” in your document by “explain to”.

10.5 Getting help

enter help system C–x C–h
command-apropos (while in help) a
describe-bindings (while in help) b
describe-key-briefly (while in help) k

To start Emacs’ help system, press C–x C–h. The help system itself has many options and modes,
of which the three most useful to you are described here. To execute these help commands, press the
letter indicated when the main help system window appears:
command-apropos: a
Command-apropos will display information about all commands relevant to any word you enter.
For instance, if you type C–x C–h (to enter the help system) followed by the character a, Emacs will
prompt you at the bottom of the screen to type in a word. As an example, if you type the word “save”
and press enter or return, you will see a window listing all the commands whose names contain the
word “save”. You may have to move into that window (C–o) and move down (C–v to page down) if
there are more lines than can be displayed in the window at once. If you want to run an command

21
(perhaps you want to save your file) but can’t remember the keystroke which invokes it, you may find
it using command-apropos. Beware- you’ll also see a number of commands which aren’t discussed in
this tutorial.
describe-bindings: b
Describe-bindings will list all the commands which can be used in Emacs’ current mode, with the
keystrokes used to execute each command. If you forget which key does what, you can run describe-
bindings (C–x C–h to enter the help system, followed by b) and look for the name of the command you
want to run. Beware- you’ll also see a number of commands which aren’t discussed in this tutorial.
describe-key-briefly: c
Describe–key–briefly will allow you to type in any keystroke, and will display in the bottom or
status line the name of the command which will be executed by pressing those keys. For instance, if
you type C–x C–h (to enter the help system) followed by the character c to select the describe-key-
briefly mode, followed by the keystroke C–e, you’ll see Emacs tells you that C–e runs the command
end-of-line.

10.6 Chart of all Emacs commands

C– means hold down the Control key while pressing the next key mentioned.
M– means you should press the Escape key, release it, and then press the next key mentioned.
Cancel command:
C–g

Basic cursor movement commands:

forward one character C–f
backward one character C–b
previous (up) one line C–p
next (down) one line C–n
beginning of current line C–a
end of current line C–e
one whole page up M–v
one whole page down C–v
beginning of file M–<
end of file M–>

Basic commands for deleting text:

delete character forward C–d
the backspace key on the keyboard, or C–h, which
delete character backward
also does this
delete characters to end of line C–k

Saving and quitting:

save file C–x C–s
quit Emacs C–x C–c

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Line numbers and undo
goto–line F10 e g return number
undo C–

Commands involved in moving text

set mark at current cursor position C–@ or C–Space (the space bar)
kill region (cut) C–w
copy region to kill ring without deleting M–w
yank back last region killed (paste) C–y

Multiple windows
open new window C–x 2
open or read a different file into the current
C–x C–f
window
move to other window C–x o
make current window the only window C–x 1

Searching for and replacing text:

enter incremental search mode C–s
search for next occurrence C–s
remove last letter of search word or phrase backspace or delete
exit search and return to starting position C–g
exit search, leaving cursor at current position return or enter

query replace M–%

y do replacement
n don’t do replacement
C–g exit replace mode

Getting help:
enter help system C–x C–h
command-apropos (while in help) a
describe-bindings (while in help) b
describe-key-briefly (while in help) k

10.7 Conclusion
Emacs has many, many more capabilities than those mentioned here. This tutorial has discussed only
the basics necessary for you to be able to create and edit programs as necessary for your course, plus a
very few useful additional features. If you want to learn more about Emacs than was presented above
try any of the following sources of information:

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1. The Helpdesk in room 1400 of the Computer and Space Sciences building has information on
Emacs. An online version is available at:
http://www.helpdesk.umd.edu/documentation/unix/emacs.shtml
2. An online Emacs tutorial is available. To see the tutorial, run emacs (type emacs at the UNIX
prompt), and when it starts press the Escape key, release it, hit the x, type help–with–tutorial,
and press return (or enter). The words “help-with-tutorial” will appear in the bottom line
of the Emacs screen while you are typing them. Follow the tutorial instructions after that.
3. The libraries and bookstores have books on Emacs, as well as books on UNIX which have sections
or chapters about Emacs, if you think you might need to continue using UNIX and Emacs in
the future.

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