The commands we discuss below apply to all the italicized terms above.
I’ll use Bash, shell, and command line interchangeably.
Another note: I use directory and folder interchangeably.
Both terms mean the same thing.
The standard input/output streams are standard input (stdin), standard output (stdout), and standard error (stderror).
They’ll be popping up a bunch.
Finally, replace the commands below prefixed with my_whatever with your whatever.
????Without further ado, here’s the list of commands we’ll be covering in this article.
Top 21 Bash CommandsGet Infoman: print manual (help) for a commandpwd: print working directoryls: list directory contentsps: view running processesManipulatecd: change working directorytouch: create a filemkdir: create a directorycp: copymv: move or renameln: linkRedirect and Pipe<: redirect stdin>: redirect stdout|: pipe content of one command to the next commandReadhead: read the start of the filetail: read the end of the filecat: read a file or concatenate filesEndrm: removekill: end a processSearchgrep: searchag: searchArchivetar: join multiple files into one fileLet’s dig in!Top 21 Commands ExplainedFirst let’s look at the commands that return information in the form of stdout — which means standard output.
Generally, stdout is written to your terminal.
Get Infoman command_name: print the manual for a command.
It’s like help.
pwd: print file path of the current working directory.
You often need to know where you stand in your file system.
ls: list directory contents.
Another super common command.
ls -a: list hidden files with -a.
ls -l: see more info about your files with -l.
Note that flags can be combined like this: ls -al.
ps: view running processes.
ps -e: print all running processes, not just those associated with the current user’s shell with -e.
This is generally what you want.
Manipulatecd my_directory: change working directory to my_directory.
Use the relative path .
/ for my_directory to move up one level in the directory tree.
CDtouch my_file: create my_file at the specified path location.
mkdir my_directory: create my_directory at the specified path location.
mv my_file target_directory: move my_file to target_directory.
The target_directory needs to be specified as an absolute path (no .
/).
mv an also be used to rename a file or folder like this:mv my_old_file_name.
jpg my_new_file_name.
jpgcp my_source_file target_directory: make a copy of source_file and put it in target_directory.
ln -s my_source_file my_target_file: link my_target_file to my_source_file with a symbolic link.
When my_source_file is updated my_target_file is automatically updated, too!If my_source_file is deleted, my_target_file persists.
The -s flag allows you to link directories, too.
Now let’s see how output redirects and pipes work.
Redirect and Pipemy_command < my_file: redirect stdin to my_file.
Useful when my_command needs input from the user to do something.
my_text > my_file: redirect stdout to my_file.
Creates my_file if it doesn’t exist.
Overwrites my_file if it does exist.
For example ls > my_folder_contents.
txt creates a text file that lists the contents of your working directory.
Make it a double >> to append stdout to my_file instead of overwriting it.
Now let’s look at piping commands.
Pipe the result of one command to the otherfirst_command | second_command: The pipe character | is used to send the result of one command to another command.
The stdout from the command to the left of the pipe gets passed to the stdin of the command to the right of the pipe.
“Everything is a pipe” is a mantra in Unix — so most any valid command can be piped.
Chaining commands with pipes creates a pipeline.
Multiple pipes can be chained together like this:first_command | second_command | third_commandPipelineNote that pipes execute all commands in parallel.
This behavior occasionally leads to unexpected results.
Read more here.
Speaking of reading, let’s see how to do it from the command line.
Readhead my_file: read the first lines of my_file.
Other stdin can be read, also.
tail my_file: read the last lines of my_file.
Other stdin can be read, also.
Head at the front, tail at the back.
If you’re a data scientist who uses pandas, then those last two commands should sound familiar.
If not, head and tail are metaphors that map well, so they shouldn’t be too tricky to remember.
Let’s see another way to read files.
cat either prints a file or concatenates multiple files, depending upon the number of files passed.
catcat my_one_file.
txt: with one file, cat prints the contents to stdout.
The cat command acts differently when you give it two or more files.
cat my_file1.
txt my_file2.
txt: with two or more files, cat concatenate the contents of the file together and prints the output to stdout.
If you want to save the concatenated files as a new file use the > write operator like so:cat my_file1.
txt my_file2.
txt > my_new_file.
txtNow let’s check out removing and ending things.
Endrm my_file: remove my_file from your file system.
rm -r my_folder: remove my_folder and all files and subfolders in my_folder.
-r is for recursive.
Add -f if you don’t want a confirmation prompt for each deletion.
kill 012345: end the specified running process gracefully by giving it time to shut down.
kill -9 012345: forcibly end the specified running process right away.
-s SIGKILL means that same thing as -9.
SearchThe next few commands — grep, ag, and ack — are for searching.
Grep is the old, trusty sibling — reliable but slower and slightly less user-friendly.
Get a grep!grep my_regex my_file: search for my_term in my_file.
Returns the whole line of the file for each match.
my_term is a regular expression by default.
grep -i my_regex my_file: -i makes the search case insensitive.
grep -v my_regex my_file: return all lines that don’t contain my_term.
-v returns the inverse, like not in many languages.
grep -c my_regex my_file: return a count of how many times a match is found with -c.
grep -R my_regex my_folder: recursively search all files in the folder and all subfolders with -R.
Now let’s turn to Ag — grep’s younger, faster, better-looking sibling.
Get it?ag my_regex my_file: returns the line number and the line with any matches.
ag -i my_regex my_file: -i for case insensitive .
Ag automatically reads your .
gitignore file and excludes results from any matching files or folders.
Pretty cool!ag my_regex my_file –skip-vcs-ignores: override the automatic version control system file reading with –skip-vcs-ignores.
You can also make a .
agignore file to exclude file paths from Ag.
The third sibling is Ack.
Ag and Ack are nearly identical twins — they are 99% interchangeable.
Ag is faster, so I’d stick with it.
ArchiveNow let’s look at making tarball archives.
tar my_source_directory: join multiple files in a source directory into one tarball file.
This command is useful for distributing files that others will download.
tarA tarball has .
tar file extension, which stands for Tape ARchive.
Tape tells you something about how old this command is!tar -cf my_file.
tar my_source_directory: create a tarball file named my_file.
tar with the contents of my_source_directory.
-c is for create and -f is for file.
Extract a tar file with -xf.
-x is for extract and -f is for file.
tar -xf my_file.
tar expands the files in my_file.
tar into the current working directory.
Now let’s look at zipping and unzipping .
tar files.
tar -cfz my_file.
tar.
gz my_source_directory uses gzip to compress the the files.
-c for create, -f for file, and -z for zip.
Gzip saves space and download time for consumers of your file.
Unzip a .
tar.
gz file by adding the-z flag to the extraction command we saw earlier.
tar -xfz my_file.
tar.
gz.
-x for extract, -f for file, -z for zip.
tar has many other flags you can use.
Bash AliasesMake Bash aliases to save you keystrokes in the terminal.
Then you can do things like type bu instead of python setup.
py sdist bdist_wheel.
Just add the following line to your ~/.
bash_profile:alias bu="python setup.
py sdist bdist_wheel"If you don’t have a ~/.
bash_profile file you can create one from your command line with the touch command.
Then restart your terminal and use two keystrokes to build your Python package.
Nothing like typing 2 letters instead of 44.
????Add whatever other aliases you like and watch your productivity grow.
????Let’s review what we’ve covered.
Recap: Top 21 Bash CommandsGet Infoman: print manual (help) for a commandpwd: print working directoryls: list directory contentsps: view running processesManipulatecd: change working directorytouch: create a filemkdir: create a directorycp: copymv: move or renameln: linkRedirect and Pipe<: redirect stdin>: redirect stdout|: pipe content of one command to the next commandReadhead: read the start of the filetail: read the end of the filecat: read a file or concatenate filesEndrm: removekill: end a processSearchgrep: searchag: searchArchivetar: join multiple files into one fileWrapIn this article you’ve seen 21 of the most common shell commands.
If you have another one you think should make the list, let me know on Twitter @discdiver.
You’ve also seen how to create Bash aliases to save you time.
Here are a few resources if you want to go deeper:Conquering the Command Line is a great free e-book by Mark Bateson.
Conquering the Command LineLearn to master and conquer the most valuable and useful command line tools for Unix and Linux based systems.
In this…conqueringthecommandline.
comThe official Bash docs from gnu.
org are here.
Sed and Awk sound like two brothers, but they are actually text processing utilities that often seen in Bash.
Learn more about them here.
cURL — pronounce “curl” — is used to transfer data with URLs and test servers.
Learn more here.
If you want to learn how to put these commands and other Bash code into scripts, here’s a good guide.
Here’s a big cheat sheet for Bash scripting.
Like any language, learning Bash takes practice.
Use it to increase your productivity and have fun teaching it to someone else.
????I write about how to use programming and data science tools like Docker, Git, and Python.
If that’s of interest to you, read more here and follow me on Medium.
Happy shelling!.