File and directory management
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The following are common or important commands for finding and managing files and directories in Linux.
1 File and directory management
| Command | Function |
|---|---|
| cat file | Display contents of file on screen |
| cat file1 file2 > file3 | Concatenate file_1 and file_2 and sends combined contents to new file_3 |
| cat file1 >> file2 | Append the content of file1 to the end of file2 |
| cat > file | Create new empty file |
| cd | Move to home directory |
| cd - | Move back to previous directory |
| cd .. | Move up to parent directory |
| cd “dir | Navigate to the specified directory |
| cd / | Move to root directory |
| cd or cd ~ | Move to the home ($HOME) directory |
| cp -a -R -i | Copy directories or files from an active directory instance. |
| cp -r dir1 dir2 | Recursively copy the contents of directory1 to directory2 |
| cp -r source_dir destination | Copy the source_directory recursively to the destination (if the destination exists, the source_directory is copied into the destination, or otherwise the destination is created with the contents of source_directory . |
| cp -r /source_dir*/*.* /dest_dir | Recursively copy a number of files from multiple subdirectories to a new directory) |
| cp -t /dest_dir */*.png | Recursively copy a number of files from multiple subdirectories (of a certain type) to a new directory) |
| cp file1 file2 | Create a copy of file1, named file2 |
| file -L file | Follow a symbolic link for a file to determine its type |
| file file | Determine what type of file the file name is; file -z for compressed files |
| xargs mv –target-directory=’’dir’’ | Search through a large directory to move all files (of a certain type) to a new directory (useful when a regular mv, cp or other command yields error messages like “argument list too long” for an extremely large number of files or subdirectories) |
| gpg -c file | Encrypt a specified file. |
| gpg file.gpg | Decrypt a specified file with a .gpg extension. |
| head file | Display the first ten lines of a file |
| less file | Browse through the contents of a text file; like more, but with the ability to page back and forth |
| ln -s path-to-file | Create a symbolic link to a specified file |
| ls | List directories and files in current directory |
| ls -a | Lists all files including hidden files |
| ls -al | List all files and directories with full information, e.g., size, permission, and owner. |
| ls -hl | Display file sizes in human readable format (e.g.,. MB, GB) |
| ls -l | List all files in detailed format |
| ls -l file | Show file information of a specified file |
| ls -R | Displays files in current directory and all subdirectories |
| ls -rt | List files in reverse chronological order (according to when they were modified) |
| ls -t | List and sort files chronologically (according to when modified) |
| mkdir “dir' | # Create a directory |
| more file | Open and display contents of a file |
| mv | Move or rename a file |
| mv -f | Forcibly move or rename a file |
| mv -t /dest_dir */*.png | Recursively move a number of files from multiple subdirectories (of a certain type) to a new directory) |
| mv file newname | Renames file to new name |
| mv file "dir" | Moves file to specified path (directory) |
| mv file” newname | Rename a file |
| mv file1 file2 | # Rename or move file1 to file2 . If file2 is an existing directory, move file1 into directory file2 |
| pwd | Display the current directory |
| rm -f file | Forcefully delete a file without prompting for confirmation |
| rm -r dir | Remove the directory and its contents recursively |
| rm -r “dir' | Delete a directory |
| rm -rf “dir' | Recursively and forcefully delete a directory |
| .bar|*.baz) | Delete all files in a directory that do not match a certain file extension |
| rm file | Delete a file |
| rm file | Delete file |
| rmdir dir | Delete directory |
| rmdir-r dir | Remove a directory and its contents recursively |
| stat -f device | Display status of a filesystem (e.g., /dev/sda) |
| tail -f file | Display the last ten lines of a file (and view it as contents added to the file) |
| tail file | Display the last ten lines of file |
| touch file | Create a new (and empty) file |
| wc file | Outputs number of bytes, lines, and words of a specified file name. |
2 File Utilities
| Command | Function |
|---|---|
| aspel | Interactive spell checker |
| awk -F "," '{print $[‘’col#’’]>}' | Print only column #n of a file |
| cat -s | Concatenate, i.e., combine files into a new file |
| comm | Compare two sorted files line by line |
| comm -3 | After two files are sorted, sort them line by line. |
| convert "*.png" output.pdf | Convert multiple PNG files into one single multi-page PDF file (via ImageMagick) |
| convert file.pdf file-%04d.png | Convert PDF file into multiple PNG files (or other file formats), with enumerated file names (via ImageMagick) |
| cut -c 7-10 | Cut characters 7-10 from a file |
| cut -f 3 file | Cut column 3 from a file |
| cut -s | Remove or delete a section from a file |
| dd | Read bytes from a location |
| diff | Compare files |
| diff -q | Compare files line by line. |
| head -n | Output the first few contents of a specified file |
| join -i | For two files with a common field, join the lines of these files |
| less | View contents of a file one page at a time (with the ability to go forwards and backwards) |
| more | View file contents, one page at a time |
| paste | Merge lines of files |
| patch | Apply a diff file to original |
| pr -h | Add a header to a target file. |
| pr -n | Uses line numbers to denote a target file. |
| pr -x | Divide or split a file to x specified columns. |
| sed | Stream editor for modifying strings in files |
| sed ‘/abc/xyz/’ file | Replace all all instances of a string (abc) with another (xyz) in a file |
| sort -n | Sort the lines within a text file. |
| split -l | Split a file into separate files |
| tail -1 | Display the last line of a file |
| tail -f | Output the last portion of a file. |
| tr | Truncate a file |
| tr -d | Truncate or deleting a character. |
| uniq -c | Count unique lines in a file |
| uniq -c -u | Report or omit repeated lines. |
| uniq -u | Omit repeated lines in a file |
| wc -l | Print number of lines in a file |
| wc -w | Print the number of bytes, words, and newlines on a specified file. |
3 File search
| Command | Function |
|---|---|
| find path -name pattern | Trace a specific system directory location then queries the names of its files and folders based on a character match |
| find path -size +100M | Find files larger than 100MB in /home |
| find /home/user -name 'prefix*' | Traces a specified system path for files with a matching prefix |
| pattern2’ dir’ | Search recursively through a directory for two patterns or strings |
| grep -i | Case insensitive search |
| pattern2’ dir’ | Search recursively through a directory for two patterns or strings |
| grep -r pattern dir | Search recursively for a pattern in a directory |
| grep -v pattern | Inverted search: exclude files with specified string |
| grep pattern file | Search for a pattern in a file |
| grep, egrep, fgrep -i -v | Find keywords in files with a matching pattern. |
| locate -i | Uses updateddb to track and find files on your system. |
| locate [name] | Find files and directories by name (searches the system’s indexed file database) |
| ls -a -C -h | Lists or displays the content of an active directory. |
| updatedb | Update the filesystem database used by the locate command |
4 Grep options
| Command | Function |
|---|---|
| c | Print number of matches |
| h | For multiple outputs suppress outputting the filename |
| i | Ignore case |
| l | Print the name of each file that contain matches |
| L | Print only the names of files that do not match |
| n | Print match line with line number |
| o | Show only matching part of file |
| r | Search recursively |
| v | Invert match |
