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Introduction to the Terminal

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Working With Files

7:21 with Jay McGavren

With the commands we've shown you so far, you can only look at files and directories that already exist on the system. Now, we're going to show you commands that will let you move, copy, and delete those files and directories.

  • Let me make sure I'm in my workspace directory: cd ~/workspace
  • First up is the cp command, which lets you copy files and directories.
    • If we list the files in this directory, we'll see a bird.txt file: ls
    • Suppose I want another bird.
    • I run the cp command. I give it two arguments: the name of the file I want to copy, and the name of the file I want to copy it to: cp bird.txt pigeon.txt
    • If I run the ls command again, we'll see both the original bird.txt file, and the new pigeon.txt file: ls
    • And if I print the contents of pigeon.txt, we'll see those have been copied over, too: cat pigeon.txt 
treehouse:~/workspace/library/non-fiction$ cd ~/workspace
treehouse:~/workspace$ ls
bird.txt  cart.txt  library  mall  offices  statue.txt
treehouse:~/workspace$ cp bird.txt pigeon.txt
treehouse:~/workspace$ ls
bird.txt  cart.txt  library  mall  offices  pigeon.txt  statue.txt
treehouse:~/workspace$ cat pigeon.txt
There is a bird here, looking up at the statue with interest.
  • cp is an important command. It's one of those commands you'll be using a lot. That's why its name is abbreviated, so you can type it more quickly.
  • You can use cp to copy files into other directories, too.
    • I can copy bird.txt into the mall directory by giving the directory name as the second argument to cp: cp bird.txt mall/
    • As always, the directory name will work with or without a slash following it.
    • Now let me change into the mall directory: cd mall/
    • And list its contents: ls
    • You'll see a bird.txt file in this directory as well.
treehouse:~/workspace$ cp bird.txt mall/
treehouse:~/workspace$ cd mall/
treehouse:~/workspace/mall$ ls
bird.txt  dullards  map.txt  starbunks
  • You can also copy files to the parent directory.
    • Let me change back to the workspace directory: cd ..
    • And now I'll copy the bird.txt file again, specifying the parent directory as the target: cp bird.txt ..
    • If I change to the parent directory and list its contents, you'll see another bird.txt file there.
treehouse:~/workspace/mall$ cd ..
treehouse:~/workspace$ cp bird.txt ..
treehouse:~/workspace$ cd ..
treehouse:~$ ls
bird.txt  workspace
  • You can use cp to copy directories, too.
    • Let me change back to the workspace directory: cd workspace
    • ls
    • Suppose I want to make a copy of the offices directory.
    • But I can't just type cp offices/ more_offices: cp offices/ more_offices
    • Normally, if you ask cp to copy a directory, it will skip it.
    • But if I add the -r option to cp, it will work: cp -r offices/ more_offices
    • ls
    • You can see there's a more_offices directory here now.
    • The -r option stands for recursive, as in "copy recursively".
    • To do something recursively means to do it in a recurring or repeating fashion.
    • In this case, it means that not only will the offices directory be copied, its contents and all of the contents of its subdirectories will be copied, too.
    • Let me list the contents of the more_offices directory: ls more_offices/
    • You can see its subdirectories have been copied over, too.
    • Any files will get copied over too.
    • If I list the contents of the more_offices/web_agency/mcgavren/ directory, you'll see a copy of the script file we saw earlier in the course: ls more_offices/web_agency/mcgavren/ 
treehouse:~$ cd workspace
treehouse:~/workspace$ ls
bird.txt  cart.txt  library  mall  offices  pigeon.txt  statue.txt
treehouse:~/workspace$ cp offices/ more_offices
cp: omitting directory 'offices/'
treehouse:~/workspace$ cp -r offices/ more_offices
treehouse:~/workspace$ ls
bird.txt  cart.txt  library  mall  more_offices  offices  pigeon.txt  statue.txt
treehouse:~/workspace$ ls more_offices/
dentist  lawyer  web_agency
treehouse:~/workspace$ ls more_offices/web_agency/mcgavren/
hello.sh
  • What if you want to change a file's name, without copying it? In that case you'd use the mv command, which stands for "move".
    • I can move the bird.txt file to sparrow.txt with mv bird.txt sparrow.txt: mv bird.txt sparrow.txt
    • ls
    • You can see there's no longer a file under the name bird.txt, but there is a file named sparrow.txt.
treehouse:~/workspace$ ls
bird.txt  cart.txt  library  mall  more_offices  offices  pigeon.txt  statue.txt
treehouse:~/workspace$ mv bird.txt sparrow.txt
treehouse:~/workspace$ ls
cart.txt  library  mall  more_offices  offices  pigeon.txt  sparrow.txt  statue.txt
  • If you specify a directory as a target, you can move a file into that directory.
    • Let's say we want to move the hot dog cart to the mall.
    • We'd run mv cart.txt mall/ (again, the trailing slash is optional): mv cart.txt mall/
    • If I change to the mall directory and list its files, you can see the cart.txt file has been moved there.
    • cd ..
    • ls
treehouse:~/workspace$ ls
cart.txt  library  mall  more_offices  offices  pigeon.txt  sparrow.txt  statue.txt
treehouse:~/workspace$ mv cart.txt mall/
treehouse:~/workspace$ cd mall
treehouse:~/workspace/mall$ ls
bird.txt  cart.txt  dullards  map.txt  starbunks
  • You can move multiple files into a single directory by giving multiple file names.
    • For example, I can move both the pigeon.txt and sparrow.txt files into the mall directory with: mv pigeon.txt sparrow.txt mall/
    • ls
    • If I change into the mall directory and list it's contents, you can see that both the pigeon.txt and sparrow.txt files have been moved here.
treehouse:~/workspace/mall$ cd ..
treehouse:~/workspace$ ls
library  mall  more_offices  offices  pigeon.txt  sparrow.txt  statue.txt
treehouse:~/workspace$ mv pigeon.txt sparrow.txt mall/
treehouse:~/workspace$ ls
library  mall  more_offices  offices  statue.txt
treehouse:~/workspace$ cd mall
treehouse:~/workspace/mall$ ls
bird.txt  cart.txt  dullards  map.txt  pigeon.txt  sparrow.txt  starbunks
  • The mv command is one of many commands where wildcard expansion comes in handy.
    • Suppose I want to move all these text files back to the parent directory.
    • I could use the wildcard *.txt to find all of them: echo *.txt
    • mv *.txt .. will take all of the .txt files in this directory, and move them to the parent directory: mv *.txt ..
    • If I list the files here, you can see they've all been moved out of this directory.
    • And if I change to the parent directory and list the files, you can see they've all been moved here.
    • Whoops! It looks like I also moved the mall map to this directory. Let me move that back to the mall directory: mv map.txt mall 
treehouse:~/workspace/mall$ ls
bird.txt  cart.txt  dullards  map.txt  pigeon.txt  sparrow.txt  starbunks
treehouse:~/workspace/mall$ echo *.txt
bird.txt cart.txt map.txt pigeon.txt sparrow.txt
treehouse:~/workspace/mall$ mv *.txt ..
treehouse:~/workspace/mall$ ls
dullards  starbunks
treehouse:~/workspace/mall$ cd ..
treehouse:~/workspace$ ls
bird.txt  cart.txt  library  mall  map.txt  more_offices  offices  pigeon.txt  sparrow.txt  statue.txt
treehouse:~/workspace$ mv map.txt mall/
  • ls
  • This workspace directory is getting a little crowded. Let's remove some of these files.
  • We do this with the rm command, which stands for "remove".
    • Before we use this command, let me give you a word of warning: there is no undo for removing files!
    • The files don't go to a "Trash" folder or anything like that; they're simply gone.
    • And on Unix-like systems, their data is usually scrubbed from the disk immediately, meaning there's no such thing as a file recovery program.
    • So when using the rm command, be sure you're removing the correct files!
    • Let's try removing the bird.txt file: rm bird.txt
    • If I list the directory contents again, you can see the bird.txt file is gone.
treehouse:~/workspace$ ls
bird.txt  cart.txt  library  mall  more_offices  offices  pigeon.txt  sparrow.txt  statue.txt
treehouse:~/workspace$ rm bird.txt
treehouse:~/workspace$ ls
cart.txt  library  mall  more_offices  offices  pigeon.txt  sparrow.txt  statue.txt
  • The rm file can also remove directories.
    • Let's try deleting this more_offices directory we copied.
    • Just like with the cp command, the rm command won't work on directories ordinarily: rm more_offices/
    • But just like the cp command, the rm command has a -r option that causes it to recursively remove a directory, all its subdirectories, and all their files: rm -r more_offices
    • If I list files again, you can see the more_offices directory is gone now, along with all the directories and files it contained.
treehouse:~/workspace$ ls
cart.txt  library  mall  more_offices  offices  pigeon.txt  sparrow.txt  statue.txt
treehouse:~/workspace$ rm more_offices/
rm: cannot remove 'more_offices/': Is a directory
treehouse:~/workspace$ rm -r more_offices
treehouse:~/workspace$ ls
cart.txt  library  mall  offices  pigeon.txt  sparrow.txt  statue.txt
  • One last command. You can use the mkdir command to make directories.
    • I can make a park directory with mkdir park: mkdir park
    • ls
    • I can change into the new directory, list its contents, make new subdirectories, anything I can do with any other directory.
    • cd ..
treehouse:~/workspace$ ls
cart.txt  library  mall  offices  pigeon.txt  sparrow.txt  statue.txt
treehouse:~/workspace$ mkdir park
treehouse:~/workspace$ ls
cart.txt  library  mall  offices  park  pigeon.txt  sparrow.txt  statue.txt
treehouse:~/workspace$ cd park
treehouse:~/workspace/park$ cd ..
  • If you pass the -p option to mkdir, it will make parent directories for the directory you want to create, if they don't exist.
    • For example, let's say I want a playground directory inside my park directory, and a toys directory inside that.
    • I can run mkdir -p park/playground/toys: mkdir -p park/playground/toys
    • ls
    • The park directory already exists, so that's unchanged.
    • But there was no playground directory inside the park directory, so that's been created for us.
    • cd park/, ls
    • And inside the playground directory, a toys directory has been created.
    • cd playground/, ls
    • We're now free to fill these playground and toys directories with files, or whatever else we want.
treehouse:~/workspace$ mkdir -p park/playground/toys
treehouse:~/workspace$ ls
cart.txt  library  mall  offices  park  pigeon.txt  sparrow.txt  statue.txt
treehouse:~/workspace$ cd park/
treehouse:~/workspace/park$ ls
playground
treehouse:~/workspace/park$ cd playground/
treehouse:~/workspace/park/playground$ ls
toys

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    With the commands we've shown you so far, you can only look at files and 0:00
    directories that already exist on the system. 0:03
    Now we're going to show you commands that will let you to move, copy, 0:06
    and delete those files and directories. 0:09
    Let me make sure I'm in my workspace directory, cd ~/workspace. 0:12
    First step is the CP command which lets you copy files and directories. 0:18
    If we list the files in this directory, we'll see bird.txt file. 0:23
    Suppose I want another bird. 0:28
    I run the cp command and I give it two arguments, 0:30
    the name of the file I wanna copy and the name of file I wanna copy it to. 0:33
    cp bird.txt pigeon.txt. 0:37
    If I run the ls command again we'll see both the original bird.txt file and 0:41
    the new pigeon.txt file. 0:45
    And if I print the contents of pigeon.txt, 0:48
    we'll see that those have been copied over too. 0:51
    cp is an important command. 0:53
    It's one of those commands you'll be using a lot. 0:55
    That's why its name is abbreviated so you can type it more quickly. 0:57
    You can use cp to copy files into other directories too. 1:01
    I can copy bird.txt into the mall directory by giving the directory name as 1:04
    the second argument to cp. 1:09
    Now let me change into the mall directory and list its contents, and 1:12
    you'll see a bird.txt file in this directory as well. 1:17
    You can also copy files to the parent directory. 1:21
    Let me change back to the workspace directory cd.. , and now I'll 1:24
    copy the bird.txt file again specifying the parent directory as the target. 1:28
    cp bird.txt.. , if I changed to the parent directory and 1:33
    list its contents, you'll see another bird.txt file there. 1:37
    You can use cp to copy directories too. 1:43
    Let me change back to the workspace directory. 1:45
    Suppose I wanna make a copy of the offices directory, but 1:52
    I can't just type cp offices/ more_offices. 1:56
    Normally if you ask cp to copy a directory it will skip it, 2:00
    but if I add the -r option to cp, it will work, cp -r office/ more_offices. 2:05
    You can see there's a more_offices directory here now. 2:16
    The -r options stands for recursive as in copy recursively. 2:20
    To do something recursively means to do it in a recurring or repeating fashion. 2:25
    In this case it means that not only will the offices directory be copied, 2:31
    its contents and all of the contents of its sub directories will be copied too. 2:34
    Let me list the contents of the more_offices directory, ls more_offices. 2:39
    You can see its subdirectories have been copied over too. 2:47
    Any files will get copied over as well. 2:50
    If I list the contents of the more_offices/web_agency/mcgavren 2:54
    directory, you'll see a copy of the script file we saw earlier in the course. 2:57
    So that's how the cp command works. 3:03
    Now what if you wanna change a file's name without copying it? 3:05
    In that case, you'd use the mv command which stands for move. 3:08
    I can move the bird.txt file to sparrow.txt with mv bird.txt sparrow.txt. 3:13
    You can see there's no longer a file under the name bird.txt but 3:21
    there is a file named sparrow.txt. 3:25
    If you specify a directory as a target, you can move a file into that directory. 3:27
    Let's say we wanna move the hotdog cart to the mall. 3:32
    We'd run mv cart.txt mall/. 3:35
    Again, the trailing slash is optional. 3:38
    If I change to the mall directory and list its files, 3:42
    you can see that the cart.txt file has been moved there. 3:45
    And if I change back to the workspace directory and list files, 3:49
    you can see that the cart.txt file is gone from this directory. 3:52
    You can move multiple files into a single directory by giving multiple file names. 3:55
    For example, I can move both the pigeon.txt and 4:00
    sparrow.txt files into the mall directory with mv pigeon.txt sparrow.txt mall/. 4:04
    If I change into the mall directory, and list its contents, 4:11
    you can see that both the pigeon.txt and sparrow.txt files have been moved here. 4:14
    The move command is one of many commands where wild card expansion comes in handy. 4:20
    Suppose I wanna move all these text files back to the parent directory. 4:25
    I could use the wild card *.txt to find all of them, mv *.txt .., will take 4:28
    all of the .txt files in this directory and move them to the parent directory. 4:35
    If I list the files here you can see they've all been moved out of this 4:41
    directory. 4:45
    And if I change to the parent directory and 4:46
    list the files you can see they've all been moved here. 4:48
    Woops, it looks like I also moved the mall map to this directory. 4:52
    Let me move that back to the mall directory, mv map.txt mall. 4:55
    This workspace directory is getting a little crowded, 5:03
    let's remove some of these files. 5:05
    We do this with the rm command, which stands for remove. 5:08
    Before we use this command, let me give you a word of warning, 5:12
    there is no undo for removing files. 5:16
    The files don't go to a trash folder or anything like that, they're simply gone. 5:18
    And on Unix-like systems, their data is usually scrubbed 5:23
    from the disk immediately, meaning there's no such thing as a file recovery program. 5:26
    So when using the rm command make sure you're removing the correct files. 5:32
    Let's try removing the bird.txt file, rm bird.txt. 5:36
    If I list the directory and contents again you can see the bird.txt file is gone. 5:42
    The rm command can also remove directories. 5:47
    Let's try deleting this more offices directory we copied. 5:50
    Just like the what the cp command, 5:54
    the RM command won't work on directories ordinarily. 5:56
    But just like the cp command, the rm command has a -r option that causes it to 6:02
    recursively remove a directory, all its sub-directories and all their files. 6:07
    If I list files again, you can see more_offices directory is gone now, 6:12
    along with all the directories and files it contained. 6:16
    One last command, you can use the mkdir command to make directories. 6:19
    I can make a park directory with mkdir park. 6:25
    You can see there's a new park directory here now. 6:30
    I can change into the new directory, make new sub directories, 6:33
    anything I can do with any other directory. 6:36
    If you pass the -p option to make directory, it will make parent directories 6:40
    for the directory you wanna create if they don't exist. 6:44
    For example, let's say I want a playground directory inside my park directory, and 6:48
    a toys directory inside that. 6:52
    I could run make directory -p park/playground/toys. 6:54
    The park directory already exists, so that's unchanged. 7:00
    But there was no playground directory inside the park directory, so 7:04
    that's been created for us. 7:07
    And inside the playground directory, a toys directory has been created. 7:11
    We're now free to fill these playground and toys directories with files or 7:15
    whatever else we want. 7:19

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