This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Aravinthan

Linux – File Commands

This is Part 2 of the Linux CLI Commands series.

Previous: Linux – System Commands

Next: Linux – Process Commands

File Commands

search files only in current directory
find . -maxdepth 1 -type f
ensures it won’t go into subdirectories (-maxdepth 1)
current directory (.)
only files (-type f)

ls -p | grep -v /
ls -p appends/to directory names
grep -v / excludes anything ending in /, leaving only files

ll — long list file and directory
ls — short list file and directory
ll -lrt — file and directory are order by time
touch — use to create a file
cat filename — to read a files
cat > filename — to create a file and also insert data
cat >> filename — to append dates
mkdir — use to create a directory
vi filename — use to edit a file
yy — to copy a single line
dd — delete a single line
rmdir — to remove a dir
rmdir -rf — delete directory and inner files rf means recursive force
rm — to delete a file
rm -rf — if rm isn’t work use rm -rf, rf means recursive fource
head filename — show first 10 line
tail filename — show last 10 line

Show line numbers (-n)
grep -n "failed" logfile.txt
grep -v "DEBUG" logfile.txt
Match whole words only (-w)
grep -w "root" /etc/passwd
nl filename — show date with number line and skip the space in between lines
cat -n filname — show all line with number
cp — copy file
cp -R — to copy a directory
diff file1 file2 — to compare to files, output is only the different data
comm file1 file2 — output with three column, fist col is file1 different data and second col is file2 different data and third col is common data col
wc filename — list out the number of line, words, bites
pwd — present working directory
cd — change directory
cd .. — previous directory
mv — move or rename a file or directory
sort filename — use sort a file in ascending order
sort -n filename — use to sort numerical data
uniq filename — remove duplicates
sort file.txt | uniq > output.txt
sort file.txt | uniq > temp.txt && mv temp.txt file.txt
split -3 filname — splite a file into three
paste filename1 filename2 > filename3 — file1 and file2 past or merge in file3
fmt filename — convert column into a single row
strings filename — use to read a file understandable format

This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Aravinthan