Bash Tips

• Basics
• Writing Scripts
• Advanced Tricks
• Resources

Basics

1. cd alone goes to the home directory.

2. ls -lt gives the long format and sorted by modification time.

3. file foo.txt gives the file type.

4. less foo.txt gives the content of the file.

5. We can double click a filename to copy it.

6. cp copies the files.

7. mv moves the files or renames the files.

8. ln creates links.

9. Use | to combine commands.

10. Control A goes to the beginning.

11. Control R goes to revere searching in the history.

12. zip -r foo.zip foo zips the file/directory. unzip foo.zip unzips.

13. grep regex foo.txt searches in foo.txt .

    • -i for case-insensitive
    • -v for inversion

14. find . -name "foo*" finds the files with the name foo* .

15. exec zsh and exec bash switch between the two shells.

16. Control N clears the current line.

Writing Scripts

1. Put #!/bin/bash at the beginning of the script.

2. Use chmod 755 foo.sh to make the script executable for everyone. (700 for the owner only.)

Advanced Tricks

1. touch {a..z}{0001..0100}.txt creates multiple files at once.

2. grep -r "hello" . searches for hello recursively in the current directory.

3. wget --no-parent -r https://cnds.jacobs-university.de/courses/os-2019/src/ gets the content recursively.

4. find . -name "*html*" -delete removes all files containing html.

5. command & to run the command in the background.

Resources

• The Linux Command Line: A Complete Introduction