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List of Unix Shell Commands

The document lists and describes basic, intermediate, and advanced Unix shell commands. Basic commands include ls, cat, rm, mv, and mkdir. Intermediate commands include chmod, find, chown, chgrp, head, and tail. Advanced commands include grep, ln, and cut.

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Shaista N R Khan
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37 views

List of Unix Shell Commands

The document lists and describes basic, intermediate, and advanced Unix shell commands. Basic commands include ls, cat, rm, mv, and mkdir. Intermediate commands include chmod, find, chown, chgrp, head, and tail. Advanced commands include grep, ln, and cut.

Uploaded by

Shaista N R Khan
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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List of Unix Shell Commands-Here is the list of the following Unix Shell Commands

mention below:
 Basic.
 Intermediate.
 Advanced.
1. Basic Unix Shell Commands
a. Listing files (ls) – ‘ls’ command lists all the files in a directory.
Syntax- ls -<option> directory_name
Example-ls test

option Description

ls -a To list all files with the hidden files starting with ‘.’

ls –color Shows colored list which can be [=always/never/auto]

ls -d To list all directories

ls -F To add one char to the entries

ls -i To list all files ignoring the case

ls -l To list all the details of the file

ls -la list long format, including hidden files

ls -lh list long format with the readable file size

ls -ls list with the long format with the file size

ls -r list in reverse order

ls -R list directory tree recursively

ls -s list file size

ls -S sort by file size

ls -t sort by time & date

ls -X sort by extension name

b. Creating & Viewing Files – ‘cat command can be used to create the file or view the
contents of the file.
Syntax –cat >filename
Example – cat > test1.dat – will create a file and wait for the input to be written into the file.
cat filname – will display the contents of the file on the screen.
c. Deleting Files -‘ rm’ command deletes a file from the directory.
Syntax-rm filename

Tag Description

-f, –force ignore nonexistent files, never prompt.

-i prompt before every removal.


d. Moving and Re-naming files – ‘mv’ command is used for moving a file from one
location to another. This command can also be used to rename the file as the source file gets
deleted and a new file is created.
Syntax–mv <source_file> <target_file>
Example – mv test1.dat test2.dat – here, contents of the test1 file get copied to test2.dat in
the same directory, and the test1.dat file gets deleted.
e. Making directories – Unix also provides us with the command to make our own directory.
It is just like making our own folder where all relevant files can be stored.
Syntax –
mkdir <dir_name>
Example – mkdir /abi/sand/results – this command will create a directory at /abi/sand path .
This command will not work if /abi/sand/ path does not exist.
2. Intermediate
a. Chmod – Sometimes, when we write into a write-protected file, we need to change the
permissions given to a file or directory. Here ‘chmod’ command is used to give suitable
permissions. But one should know the pattern for giving permissions.
Permissions are given as rwxrwxrwx
We must set permission to 1 if we need to enable it and 0 if it needs to be disabled.
For instance, if one wants to only read and execute permissions to users and others but all
permissions to the group. Then we must set it as ‘101111101’. And that means ‘575’ if
converted to decimal in triplets. Thus for giving permissions, we give the command as
Example –
chmod 575 file1.dat
b. Find – This command finds the files or directories and subdirectories in a particular
directory.
Syntax –find <options> <paths>
Example –

Option Description

-atime n Returns true if the file was accessed n days ago

-ctime n Returns true if the file was changed n days ago

-mtime Returns true if file contents were modified n days ago

-name Return true if filename matching a particular pattern

-size Returns true if the file size is n blocks.

-type c Returns true if the file being searched is of type c( if c = ‘f’ means it is a file; if it ‘d’,
means it is a directory)
Example – If someone wants to search for file names ‘test1’ in the directory, he should give
a command like –
find –type f –name test1 /abi/sand
– This command will give all test1 file in /abi/sand directory
c. chown – change ownership of the file. Sometimes someone wants to change the file owner
so that someone working on that file can access that file. Only the file owner has the right to
change the file ownership.
Syntax:chown [owner] [file]
Example: Change the owner of test1 to user name ‘aaggasa’, assuming that the current user
currently owns it
> chown aaggasa test1
d. chgrp: change the group ownership of the file. This command is used to change the group
to which the file belongs. Only the file owner has the right to change the file ownership.
Syntax:chgrp [group] [file]
Example: Change the group of test1 to group2, assuming the current user currently owns it.
> chgrp group2 test1
e. Head: Unix gives us this command-line utility to extract the first part of the file. It writes
the result on standard output.
Syntax –head <option> <filename>

Option Description

-n Used to specify the number of lines to be fetched

–c Used to specify the number of bytes to be fetched.

-q Used to suppress the header line.


Example – If someone wants to extract the first 5 lines of the file, we must use
>head –n 5 /abi/sand/test1.dat
Note – By default, UNIX will show 10 lines in case no option is specified with the head
command.
f. Tail: Unix gives us this command-line utility to extract the first part of the file. It writes the
result on standard output.
Syntax –tail <option> <filename>

Option Description

-n Used to specify the number of lines to be fetched

–c Used to specify the number of bytes to be fetched.

-q Used to suppress the header line.


Example – If someone wants to extract the first 5 lines of the file, we must use
>head –n 5 /abi/sand/test1.dat
Note – By default, UNIX will show 10 lines in case no option is specified with the head
command.
3. Advanced Unix Shell Commands
a. Grep: This command utility helps search a particular pattern or character in the file. It
returns all the lines that match the pattern in that particular file.
Syntax-grep <options> <pattern> <files>

Option Description

-n Display the matched lines and their line numbers.

-v To print the lines that do not match the pattern.

-l To display the list of filenames.

-c The count of lines that matches the pattern can be extracted.

-h Display the matched lines, but do not display the filename

-i Ignores, the case for matching

-w To Match the whole word in the expression


b. ln: make links and symlinks to files and directories. A symbolic link comprises a special
type of file containing a reference to another file. This helps to create a link between files.
There are 2 types of links”-
1. Soft link – It refers to the abstract path to a file.
2. Hard Link – It refers to the exact location of that file,
To create a soft link ‘ln’ command is used.
Syntax –
ln -s {source_filename} {symbolic_filename}
Example – If we want to create a softlink link l1 to the path ‘/abi/sand/dir1’, then we must
execute the following command:-
>ln link1 /abi/sand/dir1
This command will create a link to the directory in the current directory
To check the link execute-
ls –l
Output – lrwxrwxrwx 1 priya priya 16 2007-09-25 22:53 link1 -> /abi/sand/dir1
c. cut – This command utility extracts a particular column from a file. To extract a column,
we need to specify the delimiter to help distinguish the columns in that file.
Syntax–cut <options> <file>

Option Description

-c For fixed-width fields, the -c option is used.

-d For specifying the delimiter. By default, the delimiter is a tab.

-b For specifying the number of bytes to be extracted

-f For specifying the field number that needs to be extracted.


Example – If someone wants to extract the second field from the ‘city.txt’ file where ‘|’ is
treated as a delimiter for the columns.
cut –d "|" –f 2 city.txt

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