Before starting on these exercises, save a copy of the text file unixhistory.txt to your Desktop.
cp file1 file2 is the command which makes a copy of file1 in the current working directory and calls it file2
What we are going to do now, is to take the file you saved on your desktop and use the cp command to copy it to your unixstuff directory.
First, cd to your unixstuff directory.
% cd ~/unixstuff
Then at the UNIX prompt, type,
% cp ~/Desktop/unixhistory.txt .
(Note: Don't forget the dot (.) at the end. Remember, in UNIX, the dot means the current directory.)
The above command means copy the file unixhistory.txt to the current directory, keeping the name the same.
Create a backup of your unixhistory.txt file by copying it to a file called unixhistory.bak
mv file1 file2 moves (or renames) file1 to file2
To move a file from one place to another, use the mv command. This has the effect of moving rather than copying the file, so you end up with only one file rather than two.
It can also be used to rename a file, by moving the file to the same directory, but giving it a different name.
We are now going to move the file unixhistory.bak to your backup directory.
First, change directories to your unixstuff directory (can you remember how?). Then, inside the unixstuff directory, type
% mv unixhistory.bak backups/.
Type ls
and ls backups
to see if it has worked.
To delete (remove) a file, use the rm command. As an example, we are going to create a copy of the unixhistory.txt file then delete it.
Inside your unixstuff directory, type
% cp unixhistory.txt tempfile.txt
% ls (to check if it has created the file)
% rm tempfile.txt
% ls (to check if it has deleted the file)
You can use the rmdir command to remove a directory (make sure it is empty first). Try to remove the backups directory. You will not be able to since UNIX will not let you remove a non-empty directory.
Create a directory called tempstuff using mkdir , then remove it using the rmdir command.
Before you start the next section, you may like to clear the terminal window of the previous commands so the output of the following commands can be clearly understood.
At the prompt, type
% clear
This will clear all text and leave you with the % prompt at the top of the window.
The command cat can be used to display the contents of a file on the screen. Type:
% cat unixhistory.txt
As you can see, the file is longer than than the size of the window, so it scrolls past making it unreadable.
The command less writes the contents of a file onto the screen a page at a time. Type
% less unixhistory.txt
Press the [space-bar]
if you want to see another page, type [q]
if you want to quit reading. As you can see, less is used in preference
to cat for long files.
The head command writes the first ten lines of a file to the screen.
First clear the screen then type
% head unixhistory.txt
Then type
% head -5 unixhistory.txt
What difference did the -5 do to the head command?
The tail command writes the last ten lines of a file to the screen.
Clear the screen and type
% tail unixhistory.txt
How can you view the last 15 lines of the file?
Using less, you can search though a text file for a keyword (pattern). For example, to search through unixhistory.txt for the word 'computer', type
% less unixhistory.txt
then, still in less (i.e. don't press [q] to quit), type a forward
slash [/]
followed by the word to search
/computer
As you can see, less finds and highlights the keyword. Type [n]
to search for the next occurrence of the word.
grep is one of many standard UNIX utilities. It searches files for specified words or patterns. First clear the screen, then type
% grep computer unixhistory.txt
As you can see, grep has printed out each line containing the word computer.
Or has it?
Try typing
% grep Computer unixhistory.txt
The grep command is case sensitive; it distinguishes between Computer and computer.
To ignore upper/lower case distinctions, use the -i option, i.e. type
% grep -i computer unixhistory.txt
To search for a phrase or pattern, you must enclose it in single quotes (the apostrophe symbol). For example to search for Ken Thompson, type
% grep -i 'ken thompson' unixhistory.txt
Some of the other options of grep are:
-v display those lines that do NOT match
-n precede each maching line with the line number
-c print only the total count of matched lines
Try some of them and see the different results. Don't forget, you can use more than one option at a time, for example, the number of lines without the words computer or Computer is
% grep -ivc computer unixhistory.txt
A handy little utility is the wc command, short for word count. To do a word count on unixhistory.txt, type
% wc -w unixhistory.txt
To find out how many lines the file has, type
% wc -l unixhistory.txt
cp file1 file2 |
copy file1 and call it file2 |
mv file1 file2 |
move or rename file1 to file2 |
rm file |
remove a file |
rmdir directory |
remove a directory |
cat file |
display a file |
more file |
display a file a page at a time |
head file |
display the first few lines of a file |
tail file |
display the last few lines of a file |
grep 'keyword' file |
search a file for keywords |
wc file |
count number of lines/words/characters in file |
M.Stonebank@surrey.ac.uk, © 9th October 2000