File and Directory Operations in Linux Commands

Creating and Removing

• touch: Create an empty file.

  $ touch newfile.txt

• mkdir: Create a new directory.

  $ mkdir new_directory

• rm: Remove files.

  • -r (or --recursive): Remove directories and their contents.
  • -f: Force removal without confirmation.

  $ rm file_to_remove.txt
  $ rm -rf directory_to_remove/
  

• rmdir: Remove an empty directory.
  
  

  $ rmdir empty_directory

Copying, Moving, and Renaming

• cp: Copy files or directories.

  • -r: Recursively copy directories.
  • -i: Prompt before overwriting files.

  $ cp source.txt destination.txt
  $ cp -ri source_directory/ destination_directory/
  

• mv: Move or rename files or directories.

  • -i: Prompt before overwriting files.

  $ mv -i oldname.txt newname.txt
  

Listing and Navigating

• ls: List directory contents.

  • -l: Display in long format.
  • -a: Show hidden files.
  • -h: Display sizes in human-readable format.

  $ ls -lah
  

• pwd: Print the current working directory.
  
  

  $ pwd

• cd: Change the current directory.

  $ cd /path/to/directory/

File Content Viewing

• cat: Display the entire content of a file.

  $ cat file.txt
  This is the content of file.txt.

• less: View file content with pagination. No direct output, but provides an interactive view.

  $ less file.txt

• head: Display the beginning of a file.

  $ head file.txt
  First line of the file.

• tail: Display the end of a file.

  • -f: Follow the content of a file in real-time.

  $ tail -f /var/log/syslog
  Aug 11 12:34:56 hostname program[1234]: Log message here.
  

File and Directory Information

• stat: Display detailed information about a file or directory.

  $ stat file.txt
  File: file.txt
  Size: 1234       Blocks: 8          IO Block: 4096   regular file
  Device: 801h/2049d      Inode: 123456      Links: 1
  Access: (0644/-rw-r--r--)  Uid: ( 1000/    user)   Gid: ( 1000/    user)

• file: Determine the type of a file.

  $ file image.jpg
  image.jpg: JPEG image data, JFIF standard 1.01

Searching for Files

• find: Search for files in a directory hierarchy.

  $ find /path/to/search/ -name "pattern*"
  /path/to/search/pattern1.txt
  /path/to/search/subdir/pattern2.txt