command | function |
man COMMAND | display information about COMMAND |
cd PATH | change the current directory |
ls PATH | list files in the directory |
cp FILE1 FILE2 | copy FILE1 to FILE2 |
rm FILE | delete FILE |
mv FILE1 FILE2 | rename FILE1 into FILE2 |
mkdir DIR | create a new directory DIR |
rmdir DIR | remove the (empty) directory DIR |
cat FILE | display the content of FILE on the screen |
more FILE | display the content of FILE, stepping through the pages |
VAR=VALUE | set the value of the variable VAR to VALUE |
echo $VAR | display the value of variable VAL |
set | show the values of all variables |
$1, .. $9 | command line arguments of a shell script |
if, for, until, while | control the program flow in a shell script |
# | ignore the rest of this line - it's a comment |
display all files in the directory /home/peter, showing a detailed list (-l), and sort it according to file modification time, beginning with the latest file (-t).
mv *.txt *.bak
is expanded to
mv a.txt b.txt a.bak juhu.bak
which moves all three files into the juhu.bak directory - probably not what was intended!