Unix Commands

1. $pwd - Gives the Present working directory

2. mkdir - create a directory

Eg : mkdir dir1

Lets say you want to create more than one directory instead of invoking mkdir multiple(three)
times-like.

Eg :

mkdir dir2

mkdir dir2/dir3

mkdir dir2/dir3/dir4

rmdir: Remove a directory

3. cd : Change Directory

Eg : cd dir2

Cd .. comeback from the directory

4. cal : to check calendar

5. date: Displays the system date and time.

Syntax: date [+format]

Example: Display the date in dd/mm/yy format

date +%d/%m/%y

6. Creating a file in unix :

a) Using cat
Command

cat > abc.txt -- Creates a file and press control d to exit.

b) touch file2.txt -- Creates an empty file name file2.txt

touch File1_name File2_name File3_name -- Touch command can be used to

create the multiple numbers of emplty files at the same time

cat filename : Display Content of a File

cat -b filename : Display the line numbers by using the -b

7.ls : Listing Directories and Files

All data in Unix is organized into files. All files are organized into directories. These directories are
organized into a tree-like structure called the filesystem.

ls command to list out all the files or directories available in a directory.

Eg :

ls -l list with long format - show permissions

ls -a ist all files including hidden file starting with '.' (Hidden Files)

ls -R Recursive directory tree list

ls -t sort by time & date

ls -r list in reverse order

ls -ls list with long format with file size

ls -lrt

We use * to match 0 or more characters, a question mark (?) matches with a single character.

ls file* -- Displays all the files, the names of which start with file

ls *.txt -- display all the files ending with just .txt

8. whoami : Displays the user id of the currently logged-in user

9. who : Displays the list of users currently logged in

10. wc : Counting Words in a File

Eg : wc file_name
wc filename1 filename2 filename3 -- can give multiple files and get information about those files
at a time.

wc -l state.txt prints the number of lines present in a file

wc -l state.txt capital.txt With more than one file name

wc -w state.txt prints the number of words present in a file

wc -c state.txt displays count of bytes present in a file

wc -m state.txt displays count of characters from a file.

wc -L demo_file to find the length of longest line in the file

11. cp -- Copying Files

syntax: cp source_file destination_file

Eg : cp filename1 filename2 : Copy the contents of filename1 to filename2

12. mv --Renaming Files

syntax: mv old_file new_file

Eg: mv filename newfile -- will rename the existing file filename to newfile.

13. rm -- Deleting Files

Eg : rm filename -- completely remove the existing file filename.

rm filename1 filename2 filename3 -- can remove multiple files at a time4

14. chmod --- (change mode) To change the file or the directory permissions,

4 stands for "read",

2 stands for "write",

1 stands for "execute", and

0 stands for "no permission."

To set the read and write permission for other users, execute the below command: chmod o+w *.txt

To Remove thre write permission for other users, execute the below command : chmod o-w *.txt

To set execute permission for all users : chmod a+x File1

chmod 777 testfile

15: Sending Email : mail [-s subject] [-c cc-addr] [-b bcc-addr] to-addr

mail -s "Test Message" [email protected] -- to send a test message to [email protected].

You can connect two commands together so that the output from one program becomes the input of
the next program. Two or more commands connected in this way form a pipe (|)

16 : ps -- display currently running processes.

17 : kill -- kill the current process.

18 : man: (Manual) - Interface for working with the online reference manuals. (HELP)

Syntax: man [-s section] item

Example: Show manual page for the ‘cat’ command

$ man cat

19. find: Used to search for files and directories as mentioned in the ‘expression’

Syntax: find [starting-point] [expression]

Eg :

$ find -- List all files found in the current directory and its hierarchy

$find . -name cust.dat -- Find all the files whose name is cust.dat from all directories(.)

$ find /root/infa_shared/SrcFiles -name File1.dat -- Find all the files under

/root/infa_shared/SrcFiles directory with the name File1.dat

$find /root/infa_shared/SrcFiles -iname File1.dat -- Find all the files whose name is file1.dat and
contains both capital and small letters in /root/infa_shared/SrcFiles directory.

find / -type d -name dir10 -- Find all directories whose name is dir10 in / (root) directory.

find . -type f -empty -- Find all the Empty Files in all directories

More about Find command read the below page :

https://www.tecmint.com/35-practical-examples-of-linux-find-command/

20. du: (disk usage) Estimate disk usage is blocks

syntax: du [options] [file]

Example: $ du - Show number of blocks occupied by files in the current directory

du -sh * - summary of directories (-s) in human-readable format (-h : Byte, Kilobyte, Megabyte,
Gigabyte, Terabyte and Petabyte):

du -sk * -- summary of directories (-s) in kilobytes (-k)

https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/du-command-linux-examples/

21: df: (disk free) Show number of free blocks for mounted file system

Syntax: df [options] [file]

Example: $ df -l -- Show number of free blocks in local file systems

https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/df-command-in-linux-with-examples/

Unix Filter Commands :

grep: Find lines in stdin that match a pattern and print them to stdout.

sort: Sort the lines in stdin, and print the result to stdout.

uniq: Read from stdin and print unique (that are different from the adjacent line) to stdout.

cat: Read lines from stdin (and more files), and concatenate them to stdout.

more: Read lines from stdin, and provide a paginated view to stdout.

cut: Cut specified byte, character or field from each line of stdin and print to stdout.

paste: Read lines from stdin (and more files), and paste them together line-by-line to stdout.

head: Read the first few lines from stdin (and more files) and print them to stdout.

tail: Read the last few lines from stdin (and more files) and print them to stdout.

wc: Read from stdin, and print the number of newlines, words, and bytes to stdout.

tr: Translate or delete characters read from stdin and print to stdout.

22 . grep Command -- search for string in the file. – it will show all the lines which contains the
string.

searches a file or files for lines that have a certain pattern .

g/re/p which means --Gobally search for a regular expression and print all lines containing it.

Eg :
grep "this" demo_file -- Search for the given string in a single file

grep "this" demo_* -- Checking for the given string in multiple files.

grep -i "this" demo_file -- Case insensitive search using grep -i ’ (Both upper and lower case)

grep -r "this" * -- Searching in all files recursively using grep -r

(look for the string “this” in all the files in the current directory and all it’s subdirectory.)

grep -l this demo_* -- Display only the file names which matches the given pattern using grep -l

grep -n "this" demo_file -- Show line number while displaying the output using grep -n

grep “[a-e]” file1 -- Match all lines that contain any of the letters ‘a’, ‘b’, ‘c’, ‘d’ or ‘e’.

grep “[^aeiou]” file1 -- Match all lines that do not contain a vowel

grep “^hello” file1 -- Match all lines that start with ‘hello’. E.g: “hello there”

grep “done$” file1 -- Match all lines that end with ‘done’. E.g: “well done”

$grep -e "Agarwal" –e "Aggarwal" –e "Agrawal" geekfile.txt

^ -- exclude “[^aeiou]” or (start)

$ -- ending

https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/grep-command-in-unixlinux/

23 : sort -- command arranges lines of text alphabetically or numerically

Assume the below initial contents of file1.txt for the following examples

01 Priya

04 Shreya

03 Tuhina

02 Tushar

$ sort file1.txt -- Default ordering

01 Priya

02 Tushar

03Tuhina
04 Shreya

$ sort -r file1.txt -- Sort in reverse ordering:

04 Shreya

03Tuhina

02 Tushar

01 Priya

$ sort -k 2 file1.txt -- Sort by the second field:

01 Priya

04 Shreya

03 Tuhina

02 Tushar
24) uniq : command line utility that reports or filters out the repeated lines in a file.

( Displays the unique lines in the file)

Eg :

uniq kt.txt

uniq -c kt.txt -- It tells the number of times a line was repeated. (count)

uniq -d kt.txt -- It only prints the repeated lines. ( -d dupliacate)

uniq -u kt.txt -- only show lines that are not repeated ( unique)

delete duplicate lines : -- Important interview question

sort file.txt | uniq -u -- remove duplicate line in a file in unix

sort file.txt | uniq -u | cat file.txt -- remove and display the contents of
the file

https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/unix-linux-shell-removing-duplicate-lines/

25) head Command : head by default, prints the first 10 lines of each FILE to
standard output

head file1.txt -- displays first 10 lines in the file1.txt

Check more options below.

https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/head-command-linux-examples/

26) tail Command : tail by default last 10 lines of each FILE to standard output

tail file1.txt -- displays last 10 lines in the file1.txt

https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/tail-command-linux-examples/

head -10 filename | tail -1 filename -- to display 10th line of the file
head -n filename | tail -1 -- to display nth line of the file

27) diff commad : This command is used to display the differences in the files
by comparing the files line by line. (Compare two or more files)

Eg : diff a.txt b.txt

28) tr command (translate) : tr command in UNIX is a command line utility for

translating or deleting characters.

Syntax : $ tr [OPTION] SET1 [SET2] (Translate)

Eg : $cat greekfile | tr “[a-z]” “[A-Z]” --convert lower case to upper case

$cat greekfile | tr “[A-Z]” “[a-z]” --convert upper case to lower case

https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/tr-command-in-unix-linux-with-examples/

29) cut command : which is used to extract sections from each line of input

(Cut the fileds from a file)

Syntax: cut OPTION... [FILE]...

Eg : cut -c 2,5,7 state.txt -- command prints second, fifth and seventh character from
each line of the file.

https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/cut-command-linux-examples/

30) zip command : a command-line utility that helps you create Zip archives.

Eg : zip archivename.zip filename1 filename2 filename3

31) unzip command : unzip command extracts all files from the specified ZIP archive to the current
directory.

eg: unzip archivename.zip

32) echo command : used to display line of text/string that are passed as an argument

eg : echo Hello world

https://linuxize.com/post/echo-command-in-linux-with-examples/

33) rev command : used to reverse the lines characterwise

eg : rev file1.txt -- it reverse the contenets of the file.

https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/rev-command-in-linux-with-examples/

How to reverse a string in unix?

echo "java" | rev -- it will display avaj

34 ) sed command (stream Editor) : it can perform lot’s of function on file like, searching, find
and replace, insertion or deletion.

Syntax: sed OPTIONS... [SCRIPT] [INPUTFILE...]

Eg : sed 's/unix/linux/' geekfile.txt -- replaces the word “unix” with “linux” in the file.

https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/sed-command-in-linux-unix-with-examples/

35) awk command :

Awk is a scripting language used for manipulating data and generating reports.The awk command
programming language requires no compiling, and allows the user to use variables, numeric functions,
string functions, and logical operators.

1. AWK Operations:

(a) Scans a file line by line

(b) Splits each input line into fields

(c) Compares input line/fields to pattern

(d) Performs action(s) on matched lines

2. Useful For:

(a) Transform data files

(b) Produce formatted reports

3. Programming Constructs:
(a) Format output lines

(b) Arithmetic and string operations

(c) Conditionals and loops

eg : awk '{print}' employee.txt -- prints every line of data from the specified file.

awk '/manager/ {print}' employee.txt -- prints all the line which matches with
the ‘manager’.

https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/awk-command-unixlinux-examples/

36) history command : to give the enitre history of the comamnds which we have used.

Hisotry>a.txt

37) vi editor : https://www.tutorialspoint.com/unix/unix-vi-editor.htm

https://www.guru99.com/the-vi-editor.html

important interview questions on unix and oracle

https://blogs.perficient.com/2013/07/30/informatica-removing-duplicate-source-records/

https://ramareddydcp.wordpress.com/2017/04/23/how-many-ways-we-can-eliminate-duplicate-reco
rds-by-using-informatica-mapping-explain-with-an-example/

https://learn-develop-informatica.blogspot.com/2015/09/unix-commands.html

http://dwhlaureate.blogspot.com/2013/11/informatica-session-components-tab-pre.html

https://www.folkstalk.com/2011/11/top-unix-interview-questions-part-1.html

https://informaticareference.wordpress.com/category/oracle-interview-questions/

https://informaticareference.wordpress.com/category/oracle-interview-questions/page/12/