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Development Tools Introduction to the Terminal The Command Shell Command Arguments and Options

Commands - I got through some more videos but failed the quiz, it's going over my head.

I've read the teachers notes, saved them onto my desktop, watched the video several times, and I can't seem to remember how to do anything. Commands (the intro in general) and then Options, which I found easier to read but I haven't gotten a single question right on the quiz.

Could someone explain Command Arguments and Command Options to me in simpler terms? I'm concerned about going ahead before I understand this.

1 Answer

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,172 Points

Was the answer to your previous question any help?

It might help to think of the command as WHAT you want to happen, the options as HOW you want it done, and the arguments as WHERE the action should be performed. And in a Linux system, options are almost always a hyphen and a a letter,(like "-n") or two hyphens and a word (like "--color").

And for tips that might help for remembering, you might find something useful in the How To Learn course.