Chapter 3: Managing Files, Directories, and Text

Question 1

ls

Answer 1

list command

Question 2

pwd

Answer 2

present working directory

Question 3

ls -a

Answer 3

Display all file and subdirectory names, including hidden files’ names.

Question 4

ls -d

Answer 4

Show a directory’s own metadata instead of its contents.

Question 5

ls -F

Answer 5

Classify each file’s type using an indicator code (*,/,=,>,@, or |).

Question 6

ls -i

Answer 6

Display all file and subdirectory names along with their associated index number.

Question 7

ls -l

Answer 7

Display file and subdirectory metadata, which includes file type, file access permissions, hard link count, file owner, file’s group, modification date and time, and file name.

Question 8

ls -R

Answer 8

Show a directory’s contents, and for any subdirectory within the original directory tree, consecutively show their contents as well (recursively).

Question 9

touch

Answer 9

The touch command will allow you to create empty files on the fly

Question 10

Which command creates directories?

Answer 10

mkdir

Question 11

How do copy a file or directory locally?

Answer 11

use the cp command

Question 12

cp -a

Answer 12

Perform a recursive copy and keep all the files’ original attributes, such as permissions, ownership, and timestamps

Question 13

cp -f

Answer 13

Overwrite any preexisting destination files with same name as DEST.

Question 14

cp -i

Answer 14

Ask before overwriting any preexisting destination files with same name as DEST

Question 15

cp -n

Answer 15

Do not overwrite any preexisting destination files with same name as DEST

Question 16

cp -R or cp -r

Answer 16

Copy a directory’s contents, and for any subdirectory within the original directory tree, consecutively copy its contents as well (recursive).

Question 17

cp -u

Answer 17

Only overwrite preexisting destination files with the same name as DEST, if the source file is newer.

Question 18

cp -v

Answer 18

Provide detailed command action information as command executes.

Question 19

What is the command or moving or renaming files or directory locally

Answer 19

mv

Question 20

Most flexible and heavily used deletion

Answer 20

rm

Question 21

Explain basic commands for handling files and directories

Answer 21

Typical basic file and directory management activities include viewing and creating files, copying and moving files, and deleting files. For viewing and creating files and directories, use the ls, touch, and mkdir commands. When needing to duplicate, rename, or move files, employ one of the mv, cp, or rsync commands. For local large file copies, the rsync utility is typically the fastest. You can quickly delete an empty directory using the rmdir utility, but for directories full of files, you will need to use the rm -r command. Also, if you need to ensure that you are removing the correct files, be sure to use the -i option on the rm utility

Question 22

Describe both structures and commands involved in linking files

Answer 22

Linking files is rather easy to do with the ln command. However, it is important for you to describe the underlying link structure. Hard linked files share the same inode number, while soft linked files do not. Soft or symbolic links can be broken if the file they link to is removed. It is also useful to understand the readlink utility to help you explore files that have multiple links

Question 23

Summarize the various utilities that can be employed to read text files

Answer 23

To read entire text files, you can use the cat, bat, and pr utilities. Each utility has its own special features. If you only need to read the first or last lines of a text file, employ either the head or tail command. For a single text line out of a file, the grep utility is useful. For reviewing a file a page at a time, you can use either the less or the more pager utility

Question 24

Describe how to find information on your Linux system

Answer 24

To determine two text files’ differences, the diff utility is helpful. With this utility, you can also employ redirection and modify the files to make them identical. When you need to quickly find files on your system and want to use simple tools, the which, whereis, and locate commands will serve you well. Keep in mind that the locate utility uses a database that is typically updated only one time per day, so you may need to manually update it via the updatedb command. When simple file location tools are not enough, there are more complex searching utilities, such as find and grep. The grep command can employ regular expressions to assist in your search