Managing Files/Directories
Making Files/Directories
Just like your Folders or Finder app you can use the command line to manipulate your files/directories. Let's start by making a new directory with the mkdir command (short for make directory):
mkdir new_dir
ls
output
data_folder new_dir results_folder scripts_folder
Great! We've made a new directory! Now how about files? We can make empty files with the touch command:
touch new_file
ls
output
data_folder new_dir new_file results_folder scripts_folder
Copying/Renaming Files/Directories
Sometimes we may want to copy a file to another folder, which we can do with the cp command (short for copy)!
cp new_file data_folder
ls data_folder
output
accList.txt meta.txt new_file
We can see that we have successfully copied over our file! If we wanted to copy a directory we can use the -r option:
cp new_dir data_folder
ls data_folder
output
accList.txt meta.txt new_file new_dir
If we just wanted to move our file or directory without copying, we can use the mv commmand (short for move). However, the mv command can also be used to rename a file/folder as well! Let's use it to rename our file!
mv new_file brand_new_file
ls
output
data_folder new_dir brand_new_file results_folder scripts_folder
Removing Files/Folders
We can also delete/remove files/folders - However, do this with extreme caution as this is a permanent deletion! We will remove our empty files that we just created with the rm (short for remove) command!
rm brand_new_file
ls
output
data_folder new_dir results_folder scripts_folder
To remove our directory we will need the -r option:
rm -r new_dir
ls
output
data_folder results_folder scripts_folder
Viewing Files
To view the contents of a file, you can use the cat command. So let's enter our data_folder to view our data!
cd data_folder
cat accList.txt
output
SRR1219879
SRR1219880
Sometimes a file can be thousands of lines and you may only want to view a certain portion of it. We can view the begnnning of a file with more and the end of a file with the less command. To exit out of this viewing mode, just hit q! To get a quick idea of what your file contains you can also use the head command to grab the first 6 lines!
Editing File Content
To edit the content of a file we need to use a text editor like nano or vim to edit on the command line. The most user-friendly editor is typically nano. So let's edit new_file which we have copied over to the data_folder:
nano new_file
output
UW PICO 5.09 File: new_file
^G Get Help ^O WriteOut ^R Read File ^Y Prev Pg ^K Cut Text ^C Cur Pos
^X Exit ^J Justify ^W Where is ^V Next Pg ^U UnCut Text^T To Spell
Here we will write the words Hello World then hit Control and then X where you will be prompted to save:
output
UW PICO 5.09 File: new_file
Hello World
Save modified buffer (ANSWERING "No" WILL DESTROY CHANGES) ?
Y Yes
^C Cancel N No
Hit Y to save then Enter to go back to the command line! Let's check the contents of our file:
cat new_file
output
Hello World