Unix Command Summary

See the Unix tutorial for a leisurely, self-paced introduction on how to use the commands listed
below. For more documentation on a command, consult a good book, or use the man pages. For
example, for more information on grep, use the command man grep.

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 make a file, e.g., a shell script mycommand executable, we do this

% chmod +x mycommand
Now we can run mycommand as a command.

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

Use cp to copy files or directories.

% cp foo foo.2
This makes a copy of the file foo.
% cp ~/poems/jabber .

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

Use this command to check the date and time.

% date
Fri Jan 6 08:52:42 MST 1995

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.

For more information on grep, consult

% man grep

head

Use this command to look at the head of a file. For example,

% head essay.001

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

Use this command to create a directory.

% mkdir essays
To get "into" this directory, do
% cd essays
To see what files are in essays, do this:
% ls

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:

 q --- quit more

 spacebar --- read next page
 return key --- read next line
 b --- go back one page

For still more information, use the command man more.

mv

Use this command to change the name of file and directories.

% mv foo foobar

The file that was named foo is now named foobar

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

The file jokes.txt is downloaded from the machine ftp.fubar.net.

print

This is a moderately intelligent print command.

% print foo
% print notes.ps
% print manuscript.dvi

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

Use rm to remove files from your directory.

% rm foo
remove foo? y
% rm letter*
remove letter1? y
remove letter2? y
remove letter3? n
%

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.

See also: telnet

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

Use this command to look at the tail of a file. For example,

% tail essay.001

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

See also: rsh.

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

This shows that dict has 5 lines, 10 words, and 56 characters.

The word count command has several options, as illustrated below:

% wc -l dict
5 tmp
 % wc -w dict
10 tmp
% wc -c dict
56 tmp

dummy
Under construction

How to Use the vi Editor*

*Copyright 1991 by Simon Fraser University. Reprinted with permission.

The vi editor is available on almost all Unix systems. vi can be used from any type of terminal
because it does not depend on arrow keys and function keys--it uses the standard alphabetic keys
for commands.

vi (pronounced "vee-eye") is short for "vi"sual editor. It displays a window into the file being
edited that shows 24 lines of text. vi is a text editor, not a "what you see is what you get" word
processor. vi lets you add, change, and delete text, but does not provide such formatting
capabilities as centering lines or indenting paragraphs.

This help note explains the basics of vi:

 opening and closing a file

 moving around in a file

 elementary editing

vi has many other commands and options not described here. The following resources can help
you get started using the vi editor, and are available at the UW University Book Store:

 "vi Tutorial." Specialized Systems Consultants (SSC).

 "vi Reference." Specialized Systems Consultants (SSC).

 "Learning the vi Editor." Linda Lamb, 1990.

Starting vi
You may use vi to open an already existing file by typing

vi filename

where "filename" is the name of the existing file. If the file is not in your current directory, you
must use the full pathname.

Or you may create a new file by typing

vi newname

where "newname" is the name you wish to give the new file.

To open a new file called "testvi," enter

vi testvi

On-screen, you will see blank lines, each with a tilde (~) at the left, and a line at the bottom
giving the name and status of the new file:

~
"testvi" [New file]

vi Modes
vi has two modes:

 command mode
 insert mode

In command mode, the letters of the keyboard perform editing functions (like moving the cursor,
deleting text, etc.). To enter command mode, press the escape <Esc> key.

In insert mode, the letters you type form words and sentences. Unlike many word processors, vi
starts up in command mode.

Entering Text
In order to begin entering text in this empty file, you must change from command mode to insert
mode. To do this, type

Nothing appears to change, but you are now in insert mode and can begin typing text. In general,
vi's commands do not display on the screen and do not require the Return key to be pressed.
Type a few short lines and press <Return> at the end of each line. If you type a long line, you
will notice the vi does not word wrap, it merely breaks the line unceremoniously at the edge of
the screen.

If you make a mistake, pressing <Backspace> or <Delete> may remove the error, depending on
your terminal type.

Moving the Cursor

To move the cursor to another position, you must be in command mode. If you have just finished
typing text, you are still in insert mode. Go back to command mode by pressing <Esc>. If you
are not sure which mode you are in, press <Esc> once or twice until you hear a beep. When you
hear the beep, you are in command mode.

The cursor is controlled with four keys: h, j, k, l.

Key Cursor Movement

--- ---------------
h left one space
j down one line
k up one line
l right one space

When you have gone as far as possible in one direction, the cursor stops moving and you hear a
beep. For example, you cannot use l to move right and wrap around to the next line, you must
use j to move down a line. See the section entitled "Moving Around in a File" for ways to move
more quickly through a file.

Basic Editing
Editing commands require that you be command mode. Many of the editing commands have a
different function depending on whether they are typed as upper- or lowercase. Often, editing
commands can be preceded by a number to indicate a repetition of the command.

Deleting Characters
To delete a character from a file, move the cursor until it is on the incorrect letter, then type

The character under the cursor disappears. To remove four characters (the one under the cursor
and the next three) type

4x

To delete the character before the cursor, type

 X (uppercase)

Deleting Words
To delete a word, move the cursor to the first letter of the word, and type

dw

This command deletes the word and the space following it.

To delete three words type

3dw

Deleting Lines
To delete a whole line, type

dd

The cursor does not have to be at the beginning of the line. Typing dd deletes the entire line
containing the cursor and places the cursor at the start of the next line. To delete two lines, type

2dd

To delete from the cursor position to the end of the line, type

D (uppercase)

Replacing Characters
To replace one character with another:

1. Move the cursor to the character to be replaced.

2. Type r

3. Type the replacement character.

The new character will appear, and you will still be in command mode.

Replacing Words
To replace one word with another, move to the start of the incorrect word and type

cw
The last letter of the word to be replaced will turn into a $. You are now in insert mode and may
type the replacement. The new text does not need to be the same length as the original. Press
<Esc> to get back to command mode. To replace three words, type

3cw

Replacing Lines
To change text from the cursor position to the end of the line:

1. Type C (uppercase).
2. Type the replacement text.

3. Press <Esc>.

Inserting Text
To insert text in a line:

1. Position the cursor where the new text should go.

2. Type i

3. Enter the new text.

The text is inserted BEFORE the cursor.

4. Press <Esc> to get back to command mode.

Appending Text
To add text to the end of a line:

1. Position the cursor on the last letter of the line.

2. Type a

3. Enter the new text.

This adds text AFTER the cursor.

4. Press <Esc> to get back to command mode.

Opening a Blank Line

To insert a blank line below the current line, type
  (lowercase)

To insert a blank line above the current line, type

O (uppercase)

Joining Lines
To join two lines together:

1. Put the cursor on the first line to be joined.

2. Type J

To join three lines together:

1. Put the cursor on the first line to be joined.

2. Type 3J

Undoing
To undo your most recent edit, type

To undo all the edits on a single line, type

U (uppercase)

Undoing all edits on a single line only works as long as the cursor stays on that line. Once you
move the cursor off a line, you cannot use U to restore the line.

Moving Around in a File

There are shortcuts to move more quickly though a file. All these work in command mode.

Key Movement
--- --------
w forward word by word
b backward word by word
$ to end of line
0 (zero) to beginning of line
H to top line of screen
M to middle line of screen
L to last line of screen
G to last line of file
1G to first line of file
<Control>f scroll forward one screen
<Control>b scroll backward one screen
 <Control>d scroll down one-half screen
<Control>u scroll up one-half screen

Moving by Searching
To move quickly by searching for text, while in command mode:

1. Type / (slash).
2. Enter the text to search for.

3. Press <Return>.

The cursor moves to the first occurrence of that text.

To repeat the search in a forward direction, type

To repeat the search in a backward direction, type

Closing and Saving a File

With vi, you edit a copy of the file, rather than the original file. Changes are made to the original
only when you save your edits.

To save the file and quit vi, type

ZZ

The vi editor editor is built on an earler Unix text editor called ex. ex commands can be used
within vi. ex commands begin with a : (colon) and end with a <Return>. The command is
displayed on the status line as you type. Some ex commands are useful when saving and closing
files.

To save the edits you have made, but leave vi running and your file open:

1. Press <Esc>.
2. Type :w

3. Press <Return>.

To quit vi, and discard any changes your have made since last saving:

1. Press <Esc>.
2. Type :q!
 3. Press <Return>.

Command Summary
STARTING vi

vi filename edit a file named "filename"

vi newfile create a new file named "newfile"

ENTERING TEXT

i insert text left of cursor

a append text right of cursor

MOVING THE CURSOR

h left one space

j down one line
k up one line
l right one space

BASIC EDITING

x delete character
nx delete n characters
X delete character before cursor
dw delete word
ndw delete n words
dd delete line
ndd delete n lines
D delete characters from cursor to end of line
r replace character under cursor
cw replace a word
ncw replace n words
C change text from cursor to end of line
o insert blank line below cursor
(ready for insertion)
O insert blank line above cursor
(ready for insertion)
J join succeeding line to current cursor line
nJ join n succeeding lines to current cursor line
u undo last change
U restore current line

MOVING AROUND IN A FILE

w forward word by word

b backward word by word
$ to end of line
0 (zero) to beginning of line
H to top line of screen
M to middle line of screen
 L to last line of screen
G to last line of file
1G to first line of file
<Control>f scroll forward one screen
<Control>b scroll backward one screen
<Control>d scroll down one-half screen
<Control>u scroll up one-half screen
n repeat last search in same direction
N repeat last search in opposite direction

CLOSING AND SAVING A FILE

ZZ save file and then quit

:w save file
:q! discard changes and quit file