UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY,

TAXILA
FACULTY OF TELECOMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION ENGINEERING

SOFTWARE ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

Operating Systems
Experiment 2
Implementation of LINUX Commands -I

(Linux)

CLO 2. Use modern tools and languages.

CLO 3. Demonstrate an original solution of problem under
discussion.
CLO 4. Work individually as well as in teams
 UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY,
TAXILA
FACULTY OF TELECOMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION ENGINEERING

SOFTWARE ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

Implementing Basic Linux Commands

Shell
 a program that takes the commands you type
 Translates them into instructions to the operating system.

File:
 Under most operating systems (including Linux), there is the concept of a file, which is
just a bundle of information given a name (called a filename).
 Examples of files might be your history term paper, an e-mail message, or an actual
program that can be executed.
 Essentially, anything saved on disk is saved in an individual file.

Directory:
 With the concept of files comes the concept of directories.
 A directory is a collection of files.
 It can be thought of as a “folder'' that contains many different files.
 Directories are given names, with which you can identify them.
 Furthermore, directories are maintained in a tree-like structure;
 Directories may contain other directories.

Current working directory:

 At any moment, commands that you enter are assumed to be relative to your current
working directory.
 You can think of your working directory as the directory in which you are currently
``located''.
 When you first log in, your working directory is set to your home directory --/home/me.
 UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY,
TAXILA
FACULTY OF TELECOMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION ENGINEERING

SOFTWARE ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

Introduction to Basic Shell Commands

Command: cat

General Syntax

cat [OPTION] [FILE]...

Create a File with Cat Command

 We will create a file called test2 file with below command using “>” overwrite
operator.

# cat > test2

 Awaits input from user, type desired text and press CTRL+D (hold down Ctrl Key and
type ‘d‘) to exit.
 The text will be written in test2 file. You can see content of file with following cat
command.

Note:

 if you write again in this file using “cat > test2” command then previous content will be
overwritten.
 To append at the end of previously written content use “>>” append operator.

Display Contents of File

 In the below example, it will show contents of file1/passwd file.

 UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY,
TAXILA
FACULTY OF TELECOMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION ENGINEERING

SOFTWARE ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

# cat test2

hello everyone, how do you do?

# cat file1/passwd

root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash
bin:x:1:1:bin:/bin:/sbin/nologin
narad:x:500:500::/home/narad:/bin/bash

2. View Contents of Multiple Files in terminal

 In below example, it will display contents of test and test1 file in terminal.

# cat test test1

Hello everybody
Hi world,

Use Cat Command with More & Less Options

 If file having large number of contents that won’t fit in output terminal and screen scrolls
up very fast
 We can use parameters more and less with cat command as show above.
 press “q” to quit scrolling.

0# cat song.txt | more

# cat song.txt | less

Display Line Numbers in File

 With -n option you could see the line numbers of a file song.txt in the output terminal.
 UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY,
TAXILA
FACULTY OF TELECOMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION ENGINEERING

SOFTWARE ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

# cat -n song.txt

1 "Heal The World"

2 There's A Place In
3 Your Heart
4 And I Know That It Is Love
5 And This Place Could
6 Be Much
7 Brighter Than Tomorrow
8 And If You Really Try
9 You'll Find There's No Need
10 To Cry
11 In This Place You'll Feel
12 There's No Hurt Or Sorrow

Display $ at the End of File

 In the below, you can see with -e option that ‘$‘is shown at the end of line and also in
space showing ‘$‘for gap between paragraphs.
 This options are useful to squeeze multiple lines in a single line.

# cat -e test

hello everyone, how do you do?$

$
Hey, am fine.$
How's your training going on?$
$

Display Tab separated Lines in File

 In the below output, we could see TAB space is filled up with ‘^I‘ character.
 UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY,
TAXILA
FACULTY OF TELECOMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION ENGINEERING

SOFTWARE ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

# cat -T test

hello ^Ieveryone, how do you do?

Hey, ^Iam fine.

^I^IHow's your training ^Igoing on?
Let's do ^Isome practice in Linux.

Display Multiple Files at Once

 In the below example we have three files test, test1 and test2.
 View the contents of those file as shown above.
 We need to separate each file with ; (semi colon).

# cat test; cat test1; cat test2

This is test file

This is test1 file.
This is test2 file.

Use Standard Output with Redirection Operator(Overwriting contents of

file with another file)

 We can redirect standard output of a file into a new file else existing file with
‘>‘ (greater than) symbol.
 Careful, existing contents of test1 will be overwritten by contents of test file.

# cat test > test1

 UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY,
TAXILA
FACULTY OF TELECOMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION ENGINEERING

SOFTWARE ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

Appending Standard Output with Redirection Operator(Appending

contents of file at end of another file)

 Appends in existing file with ‘>>‘ (double greater than) symbol.

 Here, contents of test file will be appended at the end of test1 file.

# cat test >> test1

Redirecting Standard Input with Redirection Operator

 When you use the redirect with standard input ‘<‘ (less than symbol).
 it use file name test2 as a input for a command and output will be shown in a terminal.

# cat < test2

This is test2 file.

Redirecting Multiple Files Contain in a Single File

 This will create a file called test3 and all output will be redirected in a newly created
file.

# cat test test1 test2 > test3

 existing contents of test3 will be overwritten by contents of test,test1 and test2 files.

Command: pwd

Syntax
pwd [OPTION]

 "pwd" stands for print working directory.

 UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY,
TAXILA
FACULTY OF TELECOMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION ENGINEERING

SOFTWARE ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

 It displays your current position in the LINIX file system.

 It is simply used to report your current working directory.

4. Command: ls

Syntax

ls [options] [names]

 "ls" stands for list. It is used to list information about files and directories.

ls
 This is the basic "ls" command, with no options.
 It provides a very basic listing of the files in your current working directory.
 Filenames beginning with a decimal are considered hidden files, and they are not
shown.

ls -al
 This command provides a long listing of information about all files in the current
directory.
 This is probably the most used version of the ls command.

ls -a
 This command provides a listing of information about all hidden files
 and directories in the current directory whose name begins with a dot.

4. Command: mv

Syntax
 UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY,
TAXILA
FACULTY OF TELECOMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION ENGINEERING

SOFTWARE ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

mv [options] source target11

 The "mv" command is used to rename files.

Examples

mv Chapter1 garbage

 This command renames the file "Chapter1" to the new name "garbage".

5. Command: rm and rm -r

1. The "rm" command is used to remove files.

2. The “rm -r” command is used to remove directories..

(Warning - be very careful when removing files!)

Examples:

rm Chapter1.bad

 This command deletes the file named "Chapter1.bad"assuming you have permission to
delete this file).

rm Chapter1 Chapter2 Chapter3

 This command deletes the files named "Chapter1", "Chapter2", and "Chapter3".

rm -i Chapter1 Chapter2 Chapter3

 UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY,
TAXILA
FACULTY OF TELECOMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION ENGINEERING

SOFTWARE ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

 This rm-i command prompt you before deleting any of the three files specified.
 The -i option stands for inquire.
 You must answer y (for yes) for each file you want to delete.
 This can be a safer way to delete files.

rm *.html

 This command deletes all files in the current directory whose filename ends with the
characters ".html".

rm index*

 This command deletes all files in the current directory whose filename begins with the
character’s "index".

rm -r new-novel
 This command deletes the directory named "new-novel”.
 This directory, and all of its contents, are erased from the disk, including any sub-
directories and files.

6. Command: cp

Syntax:
cp [options] file1 file2
cp [options] files directory

Description
 The "cp" command is used to copy files and directories.
 Note that when using the cp command, you must always specify both the source and
destination of the file(s) to be copied.
 UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY,
TAXILA
FACULTY OF TELECOMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION ENGINEERING

SOFTWARE ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

Examples:

cp -r file1 Lab2
This command copies your file “file1” to a directory named “Lab2”.

7. Command: mkdir

Syntax
mkdir [options] directory name

Description
 The "mkdir" command is used to create new directories (sub-directories).

Examples
mkdir tmp

 This command creates a new directory named "tmp" in your current directory.
 (This example assumes that you have the proper permissions to create a new sub-
directory in your current working directory.)

mkdir memos letters e-mail

 This command creates three new sub-directories (memos, letters, and e-mail) in the
current directory.

mkdir –p parent/child/customer/acme

 This command creates a new directory named parent/child/customer/acme, and creates

any intermediate directories that are needed.
 UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY,
TAXILA
FACULTY OF TELECOMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION ENGINEERING

SOFTWARE ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

8. Command: rmdir

Syntax
rmdir [options] directories

Description
 The "rmdir" command is used to remove directories.
 (Warning - be very careful when removing directories!)

Examples

rmdir Lab2

 This command deletes the directory named "Lab2" (assuming you have permission to
delete this directory).
 ~ files with this symbol are backup files. We can recover them.

 To remove these backup files, we use rm *~.

 It will remove all the backup files.

Command: clear

Clear the Window

Command: exit
Exit a shell
 UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY,
TAXILA
FACULTY OF TELECOMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION ENGINEERING

SOFTWARE ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

Lab Task

1. Verify that you are in your home directory.

2. Change to directory Desktop. Reside in this Directory.

3. Create 2 more directories in pwd, named “File1” and “File2”.
4. Create a file named as FisrtFile in directory File1 with some content.
5. Create a file named as SecondFile directory File2 with some content.
6. View Contents of both files at once on monitor.
7. Append the content of FisrtFile in 2nd File. Verify the Change in 2nd File.
8.Overwrite the existing contents of FisrtFile by contents of SecondFile file. Verify the
Change in SecondFile File.
9. Make a copy of the file FisrtFile under the name SecondFile.

11. Delete the file FisrtFile.

12. Verify that FisrtFile. has been deleted.

13. Clear the window.