Andy Smith

Command Line Navigation

2 min read

Command Line Navigation

The following are commands to help you know where you are, navigate to other directory, and list the contents of that directory.

pwd Command

The command pwd will display the current directory that you are on.

~ > pwd
/home/user

If you are on a directory that is a symlink it will display the directory as follows

~/.config/nvim > pwd
/home/user/.config/nvim

If you want to display the directory of where the symlink is pointing towards use the -P flag

~/.config/nvim > pwd
/home/user/dotfiles/.config/nvim

cd command

The cd command is used to change directory.

~/ > cd Documents

Will move you into the documents folder.

~/Documents > cd ..

Use the .. to move back. You are able to move multiple folders backward and forward at a time.

~/ > cd Documents/stuff
~/ > pwd
/home/user/Documents/stuff
~/ > cd ../..
~/ > pwd
/home/user

Use the -P flag to move into the directory that symlink points to if available.

~/ > cd .config/nvim

Moves into ~/.config/nvim even though it is a symlink.

~/ > cd -P .config/nvim

Now you will be in /home/user/dotfiles/.config/nvim (or wherever your symlink points to)

ls command

Command ls will list contents of the current directory.

~/src > ls
Makefile  README.md  src

Using -l flag will display the directory contents in long form

~/src > ls -l
drwxr-xr-x 2 andy andy 4096 Mar 18  2022 build
-rw-r--r-- 1 andy andy  163 Mar 18  2022 Makefile
-rw-r--r-- 1 andy andy  698 Mar 18  2022 README.md
drwxr-xr-x 2 andy andy 4096 Mar 18  2022 src

The -a flag will display all files and folders even hidden

~/src > ls -a
.  ..  build  .git  .gitignore	Makefile  README.md  src

Also note that as with all of the commands we can combine flags in one command.

~/src > ls -al
drwxr-xr-x  5 andy andy 4096 Mar 18  2022 .
drwxr-xr-x 20 andy andy 4096 Jan 10 14:40 ..
drwxr-xr-x  2 andy andy 4096 Mar 18  2022 build
drwxr-xr-x  8 andy andy 4096 Jan 10 22:21 .git
-rw-r--r--  1 andy andy    7 Mar 18  2022 .gitignore
-rw-r--r--  1 andy andy  163 Mar 18  2022 Makefile
-rw-r--r--  1 andy andy  698 Mar 18  2022 README.md
drwxr-xr-x  2 andy andy 4096 Mar 18  2022 src

Other flags

  • r: reverses the order shown
  • t: sort by time, newest first
  • S: sort by filesize largest first

Backlinks