$ Basic Command Lines for Budding Developers

Falguni Sarkar
3 min readOct 28, 2020

H3ya everyone, this is me, Falguni Sarkar, a sophomore at Siliguri Institute of Technology, Siliguri. I’m here with my first article about some basic command lines that every budding developer should know.

Command Line:

  • an essential tool for software development.
  • useful to execute a wide variety of programs on your computer.
  • a tool for interacting with a computer using text (also known as a text interface).

Unix Commands is a type of command that is used in Linux and macOS.

Commands are instruction given to the computer into what is called a terminal.

  • NOTE: 1. For Windows, we use POWERSHELL or GIT BASH.
  • NOTE: 2. Here we will use the word directory (plural: directories) in place of folder often. They both are the same thing, and they’re used interchangeably.

Commands:

  • $ start . (for windows) or $ open . (for Linux/macOS)
    — Opens File Explorer where we use GUI to manipulate the Files or Folders/Directories.
  • $ pwd
    — stands for Print Working Directory.
    — On the command line, it is important to know the directory you’re working. Here comes pwd command to check that.
    — When you execute the pwd command, all the directories from the root directory to the current directory are displayed.
  • $ ls
    — when moving between directories, it would be convenient if we could see the list of files and directories in the current directory. ls command is used for the same.
    — it is important to note that ls command will only display the files and directories that are direct children of the current directory.
    — to read hidden files give the command: $ ls -a
  • $ cd
    — stands for Change Directory.
    — if you execute cd without specifying a directory or cd ~, you can move to what is called a home directory.

(i) $ cd directory_name command helps you to move to another specified directory.

(ii) $ cd .. command let you move back to your previous folder.

  • $ mkdir directory_name
    — you can create a new directory using mkdir directory_name command as well.
  • $ touch filename.extension
    — you can create an empty file of any type.
  • $ cat filename.extension
    — it displays the text content of the file.
  • $ cp file_to_copy new_file_name
    — used for copying files.
  • $ cp -r directory_to_copy new_directory_name
    — used for copying directories.
    -r stands for a recursive function.
    important: not applying -r will result in an error and the command will not be executed.
  • $ rm filename.extension
    — used for deleting files.
  • $ rm -r directory_name
    — used for deleting the non-empty directory.
  • $ rmdir directory_name
    — used for deleting an empty directory.
Photo by Sam Dan Truong on Unsplash

Tips & Tricks:

  • ctrl + l clears the terminal.
  • tab helps for auto-completion.
  • ~ means you’re in the root or home folder/directory.
  • $ sign denotes it’s a command at any site you check.
  • up and down arrows help you to get the command history to use it again as a new command.

My article is inspired by:

(If you follow them, you will be highly benefitted.)

Photo by Prateek Katyal on Unsplash

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Falguni Sarkar
Falguni Sarkar

Written by Falguni Sarkar

senior student • swe intern @theinternetfolk • previous @procedure_tech • messed up with front-end web development • hackathon enthusiast

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