These are useful unix commands that are entered through a Terminal shell prompt. These commands are actually names of Unix programs that usually sit in a folder called /bin
where am i? pwd
How to check the current directory $ pwd
learn more about anything – man
How to bring up the manual page for a command: $ man ls or $ man pwd
go somewhere – cd
How to go to user root: simply $ cd
How to go to root: $ cd ~ or $ cd /
list things ls
How to list files: $ ls
How to list files, one per line: $ ls -a1 (thats a one)
How to list hidden files also: $ ls -a
How to list only hidden files: $ ls -d .?*
How to list files in some other directory: $ ls /path/to/directory
reading a file cat
How to read a file to terminal: $ cat filename
copy things cp
How to copy a file: $ cp target_file copied_file
How to copy a directory: $ cp -R original_directory copied_directory
How to copy a directory contents into the current directory
$ cp -R original_directory/ .
remove/delete things rm
*** WARNING this bypasses the Trash bin and things cannot be undeleted ***
How to delete a file: $ rm target_file
How to carefully delete a directory: $ rm -r target_directory
How to FORCE delete a directory: $ rm -rf target_directory
open chrome (open)
open /Applications/Google\ Chrome.app/
open /Applications/<Tab><Tab> (to get a list of available options)
abort the current command (Ctrl – C)
delete the everything to the left of the cursor (Ctrl – U)
Basics Plus: bonus section
open files with open
Do you ever download PDFs on Chrome and the browser insists on opening the pdf IN BROWSER?
copy the url path file://path/to/pdf and simply run open on it
$ open file://path/to/pdf
run multiple commands ;
How to clear the screen, print the current working directory, print the date, print the weather from “wttr.in”
clear;pwd;date;curl wttr.in?0
pipe stdout to stdin |
How to pipe the contents of a file (“my_file.txt”) to your system clipboard
cat my_file.txt | pbcopy
pipe stdout ot stdin |
How to pipe the result of ls to vim
ls -1 | vim -
multiline commands \
rm -rf \
that/super/long/path/to_a_directory