Andy Smith

Working with Files in Command Line

4 min read

Command Line Working with Files

The following commands are used to create, move, copy, and delete files and folders.

touch

Touch is a command that will create a new file or update modified and access time of file depending on whether it exist or not.

~/ > touch new.txt

Creates a new file called new.txt in the current directory that you are in.

If you don’t want to create a new file then use the -c flag

~/ > touch -c new.txt

Only modifies the access and modify time of file if it already exists

mkdir

To create new directories the mkdir command is used.

~/ > mkdir newDir

Directory called newDir will now exist in your current directory.

No output will be displayed by default, but if you wish to see a message after creating the new directory use the -v flag for verbose mode.

~/ > mkdir -v newDir
mkdir: created directory 'newDir'

You are able to create a new folder and a folder within that folder in one command using the -p flag

~/ > mkdir -p newDir/newChildDir

rmdir

To remove a directory the rmdir command can be used but only if the directory is empty.

~/ > rmdir newDir

To remove both the child and parent directory in one command use the -p flag

~/ > rmdir -p newDir/childDir

Other flags

  • a: only modify the access time
  • m: only modify the modified time

mv

The command mv will move and/or rename a file.

To move a file to another directory

~/ > mv file1.txt target_dir/

Move multiple files with one command

~/ > mv file1.txt file2.txt file3.txt target_dir/

Move several files using wildcard

~/ > mv *.txt target_dir/

This moves any file with extension txt to target_dir

Rename the current file by putting the new filename in the target

~/ > mv file1.txt file4.txt

The file file1.txt is renamed to file4.txt in the current directory. Can also move and rename in a different directory

When moving to a new directory it will overwrite any file in that directory that has the same name. To prevent that use -b which will backup the existing file

~/ > mv -b file1.txt target_dir/

If file1.txt exist in that file then it will be appended with 1 to become file11.txt.

To specify what the backup file is appended with use -S option

~/ > mv -S .back -b file1.txt target_dir/

The backup file will be file1.txt.back

Other flags

  • n: prevents overwriting
  • i: ask if you want to overwrite
  • f: force move if file is protected

cp

The copy command is cp. This command can be used to copy one or more files to another directory.

Copy file in current directory to a new directory.

~/ > cp file1.txt newDir/

Copy several files at once to a new directory

~/ > cp file1.txt file2.txt newDir/

Copy any file in the current directory with the .txt file extension to a new directory

~/ > cp *.txt newDir

Other Flags

  • -r: move folders
  • -b or —backup= backup existing files if exist in destination
  • -i: prompt before overwriting

rm

The remove command is rm. This will remove one or more files depending on how many files you put as an option.

Remove file called file1.txt

~/ > rm file1.txt

Remove multiple files

~/ > rm file1.txt file2.txt

Remove any file with .log

~/ > rm *.log

If the directory contains files than the rmdir will not be able to delete the directory. Instead use rm with the -r flag.

~/ > rm -r newDir/

Flags

  • -i: interactive. Ask permission before deleting
  • -f: force. Delete file even it write protected

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