Basic Shell Commands
As throughout this eBook, we will be using mainly Git via the command
line. It is important to know basic shell commands so that you could find
your way around the terminal.
So before we get started, let's go over a few basic shell commands!
The ls command
The ls command allows you to list the contents of a folder/directory. All
that you need to do in order to run the command is to open a terminal
and run the following:
ls
The output will show you all of the files and folders that are located in
your current directory. In my case, the output is the following:
CONTRIBUTING.md ebook README.md
For more information about the ls command, make sure to check out
this page here.
Note: This will work on a Linux/UNIX based systems. If you are on
Windows and if you are using the built-in CMD, you would have to use
the dir command.
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The cd command
The cd command stands for Change Directory and allows you to
navigate through the filesystem of your computer or server. Let's say
that I wanted to go inside the ebook directory from the output above.
What I would need to do is to run the cd command followed by the
directory that I want to access:
cd ebook
If I wanted to go back one level up, I would use the cd .. command.
The pwd command
The pwd command stands for Print Working Directory which
essentially means that when you run the command, it will show you the
current directory that you are in.
Let's take the example from above. If I run the pwd command, I would
get the full path to the folder that I'm currently in:
pwd
Output:
/home/bobby/introduction-to-git
Then I could use the cd command and access the ebook directory:
cd ebook
And finally, if I was to run the pwd command again, I would see the
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following output:
/home/bobby/introduction-to-git/ebook
Essentially what happened was that thanks to the pwd command, I was
able to see that I'm at the /home/bobby/introduction-to-git
directory and then after accessing the ebook directory, again by using
pwd I was able to see that my new current directory is
/home/bobby/introduction-to-git/ebook.
The rm command
The rm command stands for remove and allows you to delete files and
folders. Let's say that I wanted to delete the README.md file, what I
would have to do is run the following command:
rm README.md
In case that I had to delete a folder/directory, I would need to specify
the -r flag:
rm -r ebook
Note: keep in mind that the rm command would completely delete the
files and folders, and the action is irreversible, meaning that you can't
get them back.
The mkdir command
The mkdir command stands for make directory and is used for
creating one or more new directories. All you need to do in order to
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create a new directory using this command is to open a terminal, cd
into desired location and run the following:
mkdir My_New_Directory
The above command will create a new, empty directory called
My_New_Directory.
You can also create serveral new directories by placing the names of
desired directories after each other:
mkdir My_New_Directory My_Another_New_Directory
The touch command
The touch command is used to update timestamps on files. A useful
feature of the touch command is that it will create an empty file. This is
useful if you want to create file in your directory that doesn't currently
exist
touch README.md
The above will create a new, empty file with the name README.md
One thing that you need to keep in mind is that all shell commands are
case sensitive, so if you type LS it would not work.
With that, now you know some basic shell commands which will be
beneficial for your day-to-day activities.
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