A short summary of UNIX commands

To list the contents of a directory you can use the "ls" command.

• ls [directory_name]

The default is the current directory.

The flag –al lists files and their sizes giving full information.

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To examine a file you can use the "more" command.

• more [file_name]

You will see one window of the file with a percentage indicator that tells you how much of the file you are examining.

Hitting the spacebar will move you to the next window.

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To edit a file use the "vi" editor.

• vi [file_name]

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To create a directory.

• mkdir [directory_name]

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To remove a directory (must be empty).

• rmdir [directory_name]

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To remove a directory and all subdirectories.

• rm -Rf [directory_name]

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To remove a file.

• rm [file_name]
• rm *.ext (removes all files with .ext extension)
• rm root.* (removes all files with name root and any extension)
• rm *.* (removes all filesin the directory)

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To copy a file.

• cp [file_name] [new_file_name]

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To copy a directory.

• cp –R [directory_name] [new_directory_name]

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To move a file (file will no longer exist in original location).

• mv [file_name] [new_file_name]

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To change your password.

• passwd

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To find out which directory you are in (print working directory).

• pwd

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To change the working directory.

• cd [path]
• cd .. (go up one level in the directory tree)
• cd ~ (go to your home directory)

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To activate a script (make it an executable file).

• chmod +x [script_name]

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To grab text from inside a file.

• grep ‘text’ [file_name]

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To grab text from inside a file (or group of files) and redirect to a new file.

• grep ‘text’ [file_name] > [new_file_name]

Example: Grab the lines that contain the word ‘energy’ in all of the outmol files and write those lines to a new file called output_energy

• grep ‘energy’ *.outmol > output_energy